


Time Travel and Other Existential Crises

by webofdreams89



Category: DCU, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Apocalypse, Break Up, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Injury, M/M, Rescue, Survival, Time Travel, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-27 11:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/webofdreams89/pseuds/webofdreams89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bart knew the cost of saving the world, and Wally just wants to go home.</p><p>--</p><p>“What’s going on, Bart?” When Bart sighed, Dick noticed his entire body moves. He remembered when Wally was that small, not long after they’d first met. That hurt to think about.</p><p>“It’s difficult to explain. It has to do with where I come from. I spent a lot of time in Gotham growing up.”  That surprised Dick, surprised him a lot. “It was nothing like your Gotham, basically just a giant rubble pile. But there was one place in Gotham that was spared, underground.  That’s where I lived.”</p><p>“The Batcave,” he said. It was a guess, but he knew it was true as soon as he said it.</p><p>“The Batcave,” Bart affirmed. “It was one of the few places the Reach never found.”</p><p>“I don’t mean to be rude, Bart,” Dick said, “but what does any of this have to do with Wally?”</p><p>“Everything. Absolutelyeverything.”</p><p>“I don’t understand.”</p><p>“It’swhereWallyis.” By now, Bart was buzzing with energy. “TheBatcave,intheyear2051.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! This is a fic I've been planning and working on for a while now. I should forewarn you that it will be taking place primarily in two different times, but I put the place and date so it should be pretty easy to go back and forth between. I don't have everything hammered out completely, but I have a general idea of how the story is going to go. I might add some characters, couples, and tags as they come up in the story. And also warnings.
> 
> Um, so I've been wanting to write an epic time travel story for a while now, and this is what has come to fruition. I'm not sure how long it will be just yet, but all the chapters will probably be pretty long like this first one is. If there are any questions or things that need cleared up (some stuff is hinted at and will be discussed later in the story) or mistakes that I've made, please feel free to let me know. I'm far from perfect. I hope I've caught most of the major grammatical errors, but I'll probably be anal and comb through this chapter in a day or two (while I should be working on the next on lol). 
> 
> [TW: This first chapter has some violence in it, but I don't think it's too explicit.]

_Watchtower  
June 25, 2016_

Wally’s funeral was held on a Friday in a small church.

It was a small, simple affair with only family, close friends, and his crying girlfriend in attendance. It was necessary that no one knew Kid Flash was gone, because that could be connected back to Wally which could be potentially connected back to Barry and Bart and so on.

Kid Flash’s funeral was held on a Saturday at the Watchtower.

More superheroes than Bart had ever seen before showed up to pay their respects, even some he couldn’t even match up to the photographs he’d memorized in his history books. He knew that Wally had always been well-liked, but it was almost dumbfounding that there were so many people crammed into the Watchtower around a hologram of his cousin. Bart supposed it was a decent replica, but the likeness it had to his cousin was hollow and made his chest hurt.

Losing Wally the first time had been hell, but losing him again and knowing, it sent spikes through Bart’s emotions that he was already barely keeping knotted together inside him.

For the most part, Bart hung towards the back of the room. He wanted to hide, but everyone kept coming up to him with sympathetic hugs and tears in their eyes. Artemis insisted he wear his new Kid Flash uniform, which made it all the worse. More than once, Bart saw someone do a double take, thinking for just a moment that he was Wally back from the great beyond.

Grandpa Barry hadn’t let go of Bart’s shoulder throughout the entire funeral, while Jaime, Tim, Cassie, and Gar stood around him like his own personal sentinel, intent on keeping the sorrow at bay as much as possible.

Standing only a few feet away, Bart could see all of Wally’s best friends huddled in a group with Artemis and Dick in the center. M’gann held Artemis as she cried into the Martian’s shoulder. Conner looked ready to punch something, his knuckles clenching, popping, and releasing over and over. Bart wasn’t even sure he was aware he was doing it. Zatanna laid her head on Raquel’s shoulder and quietly cried, Raquel’s arm wrapped around her tight. Kaldur and Roy stood to Dick’s other side, turmoil evident on their normally stoic faces.

But what haunted Bart most of all was the lack of anything on Dick Grayson’s face. There were no tears falling from eyes, no furrowed lines in his brow, no pinched pained expressions like he often wore when things got difficult during a mission.

He just looked blank, empty. It made the guilt clench painfully in Bart’s stomach.

He had to look away, instead watching as Captain Marvel made his way up to the podium at the front of the room next to the hologram. No matter how often Bart saw Billy in his Captain Marvel body, it still was still weird. Whenever they’d hung out in the cave before it had been blown up, it was always as two teenagers. The absurdness of seeing Billy as a hulking body builder nearly made Bart erupt in embarrassingly uncomfortable giggles.

_God, what’s wrong with me?_ Bart thought. _I’m freaking losing it._

Billy looked uncomfortable up there, eyes darting around the room. After a moment, Captain Marvel took a deep breath and muttered something. A flashing light filled the room before it cleared, leaving behind Billy dressed in torn jeans and a bright red jacket.

“Wally always accepted me for who I am,” he began, “and I’ll never forget that.”

Billy went on about the video games they used play together and the pranks Wally taught him to pull and how Wally taught him to dance after a girl asked Billy to Homecoming the year before.

“I was so scared of messing up and stepping on her feet, but Wally always told me I could call him if I needed him. He was retired and he had class that day, but he blew it off to teach a scared fourteen year old how to dance.”

An image of Wally two-stepping in Mount Justice with Captain Marvel filled Bart’s mind and he quickly slapped his hands over his face to stop the unbidden and inappropriate laughter.

Bart hated it because he knew what everyone else didn’t. Because he’d _promised_.

Jaime misinterpreted Bart’s actions and slung an arm around Bart’s shoulders, pulling the shorter boy to him. “It’ll be okay, _hermano_ ,” he whispered. “Not right now, but someday it’ll be okay.”

Bart only wished he was in the state of mind to enjoy Jaime touching him. He usually enjoyed it very much and thought about their stray grazes and accidental caresses when he was alone in his room at night. Now just wasn’t the time.

Leaning into Jaime, Bart tuned everything out.

Finally, Billy’s breath hitched briefly, and he said, “Wally was the best of us,” before re-entering the crowd. Bart looked up and saw he had tears sliding down his face.

Shouts and murmurs and affirmations filled the room.

Bart saw Wonder Woman raise her fist and yell, “He was the bravest of warriors!” Her long black hair hung down her back and she looked angry, fearless.

Next to Bart, Cassie let go of Tim’s hand and raised her fist as well, bellowing her approval like her mentor. The Green Lanterns and Superman clapped their hands loudly and even Batman had a look of fierce approval on his face.

They’d all known Wally a long time, since he was a little kid.

The churning in Bart’s stomach returned with a vengeance. He felt ready to be sick, felt his resolve wavering. He couldn’t keep Wally’s promise, not after this. It had been horrible watching Wally’s mother cry the day before while his father looked like he’d lost his purpose. It tore him up to see Grandpa Iris fall apart in Grandpa Barry’s arms and Jay and Joan dolefully huddled together in a pew.

There had to be something he could to, something he could at least try. Shooting another look at Dick, Bart set his jaw resolutely and began to plan.

\--

Dick didn’t hear or see him approach. What startled him from his reverie was the sudden abundance of bright yellow and for a split second, Dick thought _Wally_.

His breath caught hard in his throat and he was so close to throwing his arms around Kid Flash that it was physically painful to stop himself once he realized that this Kid Flash was much smaller, leaner, younger.

Dick ran a shaky hand through his hair and said, “Hey there, K-” He’d nearly dropped his old nickname for his best friend before stopping awkwardly, eyes flickering up to the boy’s face. “Bart,” he finished, and his voice was so quiet that Bart physically had to lean in to hear him.

He hated the way his body instinctually jerked away at the younger boy’s movement, because this wasn’t Dick’s Kid Flash. He…he was gone.

Which wasn’t to say that Dick disliked Bart. There was actually a lot to like about Bart, but so much about him reminded Dick about Wally that he’d been avoiding the boy.

All throughout the memorial service, Dick noticed the way Bart tried to get his attention, but he refused to acknowledge it each time. It wasn’t just the costume, the codename, that made Dick do a double take. It was the way Bart laughed and carried himself and smiled that was just so Wally that Dick wanted to punch something.

With Bart standing in front of him, Dick wished he’d left already. Neither Artemis nor Barry stuck around for the dinner held after the service ended. He didn’t even know why he was still there, sitting by himself and receiving periodic glances from Bruce.

That wasn’t true. Dick knew exactly why he was still here, sitting by himself in the Watchtower while other superheroes around him spoke of times they’d fought alongside Wally and his last heroic act that saved them all. It didn’t get much more heroic than saving the entire world and everyone on it and Dick suspected that some part of Wally would have really liked that and some now dead part of Dick’s heart would have loved to offer up kudos as he had when they were younger, fist-bumping, and ignoring his heart ramming into his chest as Wally grinned at him.

No, Dick stayed at the Watchtower because once when they were young, this was what they had aspired to. Dick supposed he had it now, but without Wally here by his side to bask in their accomplishment of finally being able to call the Watchtower their headquarters, it felt in vain, pointless. But Dick was the only one left, so he supposed he had to enjoy it for the both of them.

Bart began tapping his foot lightning fast in his impatience when he noticed Dick zoning out. “What did you say?” he asked quickly, refocusing his eyes on Bart.

Bart’s face was drawn tight and Dick knew that they boy had to be hurting too. Wally was Bart’s cousin, and while he maybe hadn’t the chance to know Wally all that well since coming to the past, it was logical that Bart might have known Wally in the future. After all, Wally would have only been in his late 50s and early 60s when Bart was a kid. If the Reach or someone else hadn’t killed him, there was a good chance Wally had even been Bart’s mentor.

It surprised Dick that he’d just plain never thought to ask Bart about that. Hell, Bart could have known future Dick Grayson as well.

“We need to talk, Nightwing. It’s about Wally,” Bart said. His voice was much terser than Dick had ever heard it and it was jarring. He drew a breath and saw what looked like determination on Bart’s face.

It had to be important if Bart wanted to talk about Wally right after his funeral.

“Of course,” Dick said, gesturing for Bart to take one of the other chairs at the table he sat at.

Bart shook his head. “Not here,” he replied, “It has to be somewhere else. We can’t be overheard.”

“Okay,” Dick said, standing. He followed Bart to the new Young Justice wing of the Watchtower and into the locker rooms. Wordlessly, they each pulled out spare civvies and changed into them, Dick sliding a pair of sunglasses up his nose before turning back to face Bart.

“Where should be go?” he asked. Something in Dick’s gut told him that this, whatever it was that Bart needed to discuss with him, was huge, vital.

Bart looked up at him and for the first time, Dick saw anguished vulnerability there. He knew that Jaime and Barry and probably Tim had seen it, that Wally had seen it, but it is startling to see firsthand and it reminded him that Bart really wasn’t like the rest of them. He’d seen things that they couldn’t even imagine and it is so easy to forget sometimes because of the way he covered it up with a joke and a smile.

“Gotham,” Bart said after a long moment, swallowing harshly. “It all started in Gotham.”

\--

_Zetatube – Gotham City  
June 25, 2016_

Dick was pretty sure no one would even notice that he and Bart left. There were still so many people there that it would be easy to get lost in the crowd and have someone think that they probably just missed you. Which was probably for the best. Whatever Bart wanted to talk to him about, Dick could tell he wanted it to be far away from prying ears.

They emerged from the zeta tube and made their way down the alley. Dick still wasn’t sure where they were going, but he wasn’t going to ask. He’d find out soon enough.

Bart led him to a restaurant a few blocks away from the zeta tube’s hidden entrance. It was somewhere Dick has gone many times before, not just for its proximity, but also because it was a place that was hard to be overheard in. A steady thrum of the oldies and high-backed booths far enough apart from each other saw to that. Not to mention the fact that you could see the wait staff coming from across the restaurant, giving you plenty of time to quiet odd conversations.

They snagged the booth the farthest in the back. Dick sat and looked quizzically at his companion.

“Tim’s brought me here a few times,” Bart admitted, idly drumming his fingers across the tabletop. Waiting.

“Hello, and welcome,” a pretty blonde woman waitress greeted them. Dick was pretty sure she’d been there since even before he became Robin. “Not with your redheaded friend today I see,” she commented with a smile.

Dick briefly gritted his teeth, the pain of losing Wally flaring up inside his chest yet again. He forced it down, and looked at Bart, who’d tensed up. “Not today,” Dick finally offered her.

“Well, tell him ‘hi’ for me. He’s such a funny guy. My son loves it when he’s here.” Dick glanced over and sure enough the small boy was coloring at the counter, looking over at him. Wally usually slipped him a handful of candies when his mother wasn’t looking. Realizing that Wally wasn’t there, the boy turned back to his coloring book.

“I will,” Dick said, forcing a smile.

She took their drink orders and walked off, returning with them a few minutes later. They rattled off their food orders and were finally given enough of a reprieve to talk.

“So what’s going on, Bart?”

When Bart sighed, Dick noticed his entire body moved. He remembered when Wally was that small, not long after they’d first met. That hurt to think about too.

“It’s difficult to explain,” he admitted. “It has to do with where I come from.”

“From the future,” Dick said quietly.

“Yes, from the future.” Bart drummed his fingers along the outside of his cup before taking a sip. “You know, I didn’t even know what a straw was until I came back in time?” he asked. “Sure, I probably heard of them growing up, but I really didn’t have an idea, until I came here.”

Dick’s heart broke for him all over again. He almost hated that Wally’s death hadn’t completely drained him of his ability to feel anything else. Dick felt like it should have because he loved Wally, loved him more than anything and it was agony with him gone.

Dick remained silent.

“Sorry,” Bart said, “that’s not what I wanted to tell you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dick replied.

“I spent a lot of time in Gotham growing up.”

That surprised Dick, surprised him a lot.

“Of course, it was nothing like your Gotham, this Gotham,” he said, gesturing around them. “It was a basically a giant rubble pile. All the buildings leveled, every time you breathed, you got a healthy layer of cement dusk coating your lungs, and all these crazy animals came out at night to hunt so you had to hide.

“But there was one place in Gotham that was spared, underground. That’s where I lived.”

Dick’s eyes narrowed. “The Batcave,” he said. It was a guess, but he knew it was true as soon as he said it.

“The Batcave,” Bart affirmed. “It was one of the few places the Reach never found. Of course, the Manor got leveled along with everything else, but that was just above ground. We lived below it.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, Bart,” Dick said, “but what does any of this have to do with Wally?”

“Everything,” Bart said in a sharp outtake of breath. His small body began to vibrate in his seat. “Absolutelyeverything.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’swhereWallyis.” By now, Bart was positively buzzing with energy. “TheBatcave,intheyear2051.”

\--

_Unknown Location  
June 20, 2051_

Wally came to in a field, or at least what he thought was one. He didn’t know much other than the ground was cold and he had been lying there for a while. He attempted to sit up and groaned with the effort, his entire body aching at every movement. Glancing down, he noticed that his Kid Flash uniform was in tatters, clinging to his body by threads.

Wally wrapped his arms tightly around himself to stave off some of the cold and stood with some effort, his goggles falling off his face to land on the ground.

The soles of his feet were bare and Wally realized that he had worn through his boots. That couldn’t mean anything good. Uncle Barry and Batman and the Justice League’s best, designed the boots to withstand a lot of running.

Except he doesn’t remember doing much running lately, at least in uniform, not since Bart showed up and the three speedsters took down Neutron. But that was months ago, so what the fuck happened in the meantime that lead Wally to this moment, body covered in rags?

Instinctively, Wally reached for his communicator but found none. Picking up his goggles, Wally saw that the lenses were shattered. He tried to power them up, but instead they emitted a soft, wizened groan before falling silent.

Wally sighed, tucking the goggles under his arm.

Finally, Wally noticed how exhausted he really was, like nearly every ounce of energy had been drained from him. It was terrifying because he’d never felt his body so sapped before.

He would be useless in a fight and hoped he wouldn’t come across one.

He glanced around for the first time and frowned, seeing nothing in the distance but piles of rubble. Taking a few hesitant steps forward, it suddenly dawned on Wally that it wasn’t just rubble, but a city that had been leveled. He could make out what looked like the bases of long gone buildings, mere inches of brick the only thing left standing. It was like a freaking bomb went off some number of years ago and the city was just left to rot.

Wally stepped closer to the nearest ruin and peered downward, seeing brick and old support beams fill the basement of the building nearly level to the ground. It was eerie, almost like something had pressed the building to the ground. He shivered, but he didn’t think it was from the cold.

He walked on.

Block after block yielded much of the same – broken buildings, so much cement dust that it clogged Wally’s lungs and made him cough – and the entire time Wally realized, he hadn’t seen a single person. This city was dead silent, no people, no animals. He hadn’t even seen a single fly or mosquito or anything and it was supposed to be the middle of the summer.

It was creepy how Wally’s footsteps sounded, echoing off of disheveled mounds of long gone structures, and constantly, he looked around, looking for someone. He wanted to take off running but that seemed like a bad idea. He had no idea where he was, no idea which direction to run, and from the looks of it, he must have rejoined the team for a mission so someone out there was probably looking for him.

It had to be pretty important for that to happen though. End-of-the-world important, he mused, and the world looked like it.

With the thick gray clouds hanging overhead letting little sunlight through, Wally found it impossible to tell what time of day it was. It wasn’t for a few more blocks that Wally saw that they weren’t clouds after all but dense smog.

What the hell had happened here?

Off in the distance, Wally could see a building that didn’t look quite as devastated as the rest. Quickening his pace, he approached it. Wally’s head snapped around as something jogged his memory, something familiar about the general layout of the street, the intersection, the layout of the buildings.

Something in his gut clenched painfully, because he knew even before he saw it.

The building, he observed when he stopped in front of it, had what was left of an old, dark sign. Dented, dinged up, and spray painted, but still there. In a haze, Wally began to wipe the layers of grime away. His heart beat fast, so fast that it hurt, as he stepped back and read:

Wayne Tech, Gotham City Branch.

\--

It took nearly twenty minutes for the panic attack to subside, for Wally’s heartbeat to return to normal, for his breathing to even out.

It just didn’t make any sense. How the hell could this be Gotham? Wally was pretty sure he would have heard if Gotham had been leveled years ago, especially since his best friend and girlfriend were both from Gotham.

Wally’s stomach began to clench again, because surely they’d both handle this a lot better than Wally if they were here. Artemis would tell him to get a grip and Dick would start coming up with a plan of action to get them the hell out of dodge.

But Wally, he just couldn’t. Maybe he’d been out of the game too long, too out of practice. Maybe he’d just never been cut out for it to begin with (which he really, really didn’t want to think about considering how much it all still meant to him).

Mostly, Wally just didn’t want his deepest fears to be true, for this to be Gotham City, some Gotham City from the future, or another Gotham City, with Wally so far from home. He just wanted to be home with Artemis and Brucely and his text books, possibly call Dick up and drag him away from work for the night for some beers and take-out, teach Bart how to play poker like he kept promising.

He didn’t want this, he didn’t want to deal with this.

Slowly, after minutes of concentrating only on his breathing, Wally realized he really needed to listen to the Artemis and Dick in his mind, to get a hold of himself and figure out what to do next.

So Wally thought, really analyzing the situation. He needed shelter and supplies, some place to recoup while he figured out his next move because his body still badly ached. Gotham might be leveled, but as far as he could tell, it was mostly above ground. And not all of Gotham was above ground.

Wally didn’t know how likely it was that the Batcave was even still there (if it ever was – if this was a parallel universe, then it was possible that there’d never been a Batcave in the first place), but it seemed like his safest bet. His next move.

Briefly flexing his muscles, Wally revved his body up, getting ready to make a beeline for the location (or, more likely, the former location) of Wayne Manor.

He felt his energy building in quick bursts, took a deep breath, and shot off. He’d barely made it a quarter of a block before his entire body shut down and he ate pavement.

It was lucky that he hadn’t gotten anywhere near his top speeds or he would be in a lot worse shape, but he could still feel how stiff his jaw was, the throb in his nose as it bled. His palms were scraped to hell and embedded with rocks and when Wally looked, he saw that the knees of his costume, what was left of them, were completely shredded.

Groaning, he rolled over, staring straight up at the dull gray sky. He wondered briefly if it is like that every day, ashen and overcast.

He came to the conclusion that his body was simply too exhausted to use superspeed and needed time to recover from whatever it was that had landed him in Gotham City, Armageddon-style. It was getting dark quickly and Wally didn’t know what this new Gotham City was like at night, but given the one that he was used to, Wally’s sure he didn’t want to find out. Especially since he didn’t know what rules the city played by now. The wind picked up and it had become downright freezing so needed a place to bunker down for the night.

Getting to the Batcave, at least at the moment, was out. He’d never make it before nightfall without superspeed.

Somewhere within the Wayne Tech building seemed like a logical choice because it offered more cover from the wind than anywhere else. However, Wally might not be the only one that came to that conclusion. Just because it felt like he was the last man on earth didn’t mean he actually was.

Wally stood, doing his best to smear his blood around and cover it up with the layer of dust that had settled everywhere. It felt too dangerous to just leave it visible and Wally was pretty sure he couldn’t afford anyone finding it and realizing that there was someone else around.

Once it looked like just another old dark spot on what used to be a street, Wally stopped and looked around.

The Wayne Tech building doesn’t have quite as much rubble in it as some of the other buildings, but there was still a lot. Given the substantial rubble to the left of the building, it almost seemed that it had been pushed over rather than straight down like a lot of the others. Wally walked up to what once were magnificent glass doors.

There was enough rubble that the inside was nearly level with the remaining foundation. But he could see gaps in it. Someone has definitely used this place for shelter, that much is obvious. Kneeling and looking closer, Wally could see a well-worn path formed through the rubble. It was a tight, narrow path, but it wasn’t that noticeable from the outside either. Wally had been trained to seek shelter during emergencies and missions-gone-wrong so for him, it was easy to spot.

Taking a deep breath, Wally began to crawl inside. The first few feet especially were hell on his raw knees, but he kept going. He briefly wondered if someone was currently calling the Wayne Tech building home, but pushed it from his mind. It was nearly dark, and Wally didn’t have much of a choice when his body was already at its limits.

Further in, Wally saw food wrappers here and there and they crunched under his hands and knees. The path itself felt smooth and worn from use and seemed to wind through what used to be the front lobby and back toward the front desk. Whoever created this path in the first place was smart. Wally remembered that the desks were huge and sturdy, probably had more space under them than he could hope for. And while the desk wouldn’t be able to stand an entire building atop it, it seemed to hold a couple hundred pounds just fine.

The path veered off to the left and under the desk just as Wally thought. The entire space under the desk was clear, along with a few feet around it. Above the space, there was a gap in the rubble, the dying light of the day filtering down.

Crawling closer, Wally found a worn mat laid under the desk with a tattered and patched blanket folded at the foot of it. Wally dove under it, bundling himself in the blanket. He hadn’t stopped shivering since he’d woken up and while he didn’t think this musty old blanket would help a whole lot, it would help to bring his core temperature up some.

Stretching his feet out, Wally’s ragged boots knocked into something and he looked down his body to see the faint outlines of a backpack. He sat up and snagged it, setting it in his lap.

Inside was a treasure trove. Wally found a small first aid kit with bandages, sutures, painkillers, and probably a few more things he couldn’t make out in the dark. He also found a thin, insulated jacket and immediately slipped into it. While the jacket was lightweight, it was made to preserve body heat, and Wally found himself grateful to have found it.

There were also several bottles of water and protein bars with faded wrappers. Without even thinking about it, Wally downed an entire bottle and at least six of the protein bars before realizing that he might need to conserve his newfound supplies, even if he was running on empty.

Wally pushed food from his mind, and cracked open the first aid kit. Grabbing an antiseptic wipe, he tore it open. The packet felt old, but the wipe was still wet and that’s what mattered. He quickly wiped at the road rash on his face, and gingerly tended to his nose, which he was pretty sure was broken. The skin on his chin seemed to be healing much more slowly than usual, probably due to his exhaustion, and sure enough his other injuries were healing more slowly too.

Wally popped two of the painkillers before putting the edge of the blanket in his mouth, biting down on it harshly, and popping his nose back into place.  He groaned and hoped it wouldn’t catch anyone’s attention.

He finished cleaning his shaking palms and his knees before he pulled the gauze out of the kit. It was difficult to wrap his own hands properly, but they were still bleeding and he really couldn’t afford to get an infection while his body was more or less down for the count. He moved on to his knees, before finally finding a large square bandage for his chin, which was quickly absorbed from the steady stream of blood from his nose.

Sighing, Wally ripped the chin bandage off and tossed it aside.

He shoved the first aid kit aside and looked through the rest of the bag. His hand closed around a long cylindrical object and he snatched it out immediately, hoping. It was definitely a flashlight, one of those big, heavy duty Maglites. His fingers run over the button to find that the rubber cover long gone brittle. It cracked when he pressed it.

A steady stream of light filled the space and Wally breathed in relief, amazed at how much comfort a little bit of light gave him.

He pointed the light back inside the backpack and found a watch that he strapped to his wrist. Shining the light down on the watch, Wally saw that it was old but looked like one of those expensive watches you bought your husband of ten years.  The watch still worked and Wally saw that it was nearly 9:30.

Digging further inside the backpack yielded a small bag of batteries and what looked like a walkie-talkie, big, black, and expensive. It too looked like it has seen some years, but Wally had seen ones like this before. They were good tech.

It couldn’t be a coincidence, Wally hoped. This could lead him home, somehow, maybe to someone who knew what the hell was going on.

Using his superspeed, still far from his top speeds, Wally removed the back cover of the walkie-talkie and shoved four batteries in. His heart beat quickly, wildly and he felt a quick flicker of indecision.

The person with the other walkie-talkie could be someone that could help, but at the same time, they could be someone that would kill him over a couple dozen protein bars and a ratty old blanket. And there was also the chance that no one that answered.

But Wally knew he had to do, knew it was one of the few options he even had because he was stuck, lost, and fuck if he knew what to do. He was never the team leader, the decision maker. He was good at science, with theories and experiments and technology.

His team wasn’t here though, no Dick or Kaldur to make decisions for him, no Conner to punch his way out the situation or M’gann to levitate him the hell out. No Uncle Barry to hold his hand or Artemis to make him feel better. He had to do this all on his own, had to get himself out of this mess.

Taking a deep, shaky breath, Wally flipped the power switch on.

Listening to the low static for a moment, Wally pressed the ‘talk’ button and said, “Hello?”

His throat felt scratchy and raw from disuse, the bottle of water only doing so much to sooth it. Wally snagged another bottle, took a tiny sip, and waited.

Nearly a full minute passed before a clipped voice came through, asking, “Stephanie? Is that you?”

Frowning, Wally held the button down and said, “I’m sorry, I’m not Stephanie.”

“Who the hell is this?” the voice asked. It is angry, female, older.

Wally took a deep breath and replied, “I’m not sure I should say. I found a backpack that had this walkie-talkie in it. I haven’t seen anyone for-“ Wally paused. He couldn’t tell them the truth, that he thought he either managed to travel through time or somehow went dimension hopping. So instead he said, “-for a long time.”

“Where are you now?” the woman asked. Listening closely, Wally could hear someone else in the background, an angry voice, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying.

“I don’t know if I should tell you that either. But god is it good to hear another voice.”

A long pause, then, “I don’t know how you expect help if you can’t say where you are.” Wally noted the way the woman avoided any indication of how many people were in her party. She was sharp, prepared. Which meant she could either be Wally’s greatest hope or mistake.

“You can’t expect me to trust you,” Wally replied. He didn’t want to antagonize her, but there was just no way he was giving up his location just yet.

“You’re right,” the woman said with a sigh, “but that goes both ways.”

“Of course,” Wally admitted.

“How are you on supplies?”

“I’ll make it through the night,” he conceded. It probably wasn’t entirely true, not with his metabolism, but he couldn’t let her know that. Outing himself as a meta wasn’t a good idea on principal, especially not if he’s in the future. Wally had some of idea about what the Reach did to metas from the kidnappings and experiments in his time and from what Bart told him.

“That’s good,” she said. “So you found the walkie-talkie in a blue backpack?”

It occurred to Wally that this woman might very well know his location. It had obviously been used a lot, and he sure as hell didn’t make the path through the rubble. She could even send someone out to his location, either her or that other person he heard in the background.

Wally tried to push his panic aside.

Everything in him told Wally he should take the supplies and leave, but he was so tired that he wouldn’t make it very far. He may be able to spare a few hours of sleep before taking off. And hell, he at least had superspeed on his side, which they definitely don’t know about. Even a quick burst might be enough to get away if he was attacked. Maybe he could set up something makeshift that would wake him if there was an intruder. It would be better than nothing.

“I did.”

“And there wasn’t a woman around?” she asked.

“I haven’t seen anyone.” Which was the complete truth. Wally wasn’t sure if the woman believed him or not – he probably wouldn’t if he was being completely honest, not when it was one of his friends missing.

“Where did you find it?”

Wally hesitated. “Near a rubble pile.”

“Everywhere is a rubble pile,” the woman said, and Wally could tell that she was finally beginning to lose patience with him.

“I don’t honestly know,” Wally said, which was a lie because this was the Wayne Tech building and he’d been to a least a dozen times with either Uncle Barry or Dick. “Everything looks the same.”

He hoped that would be enough to appease her.

He heard her sigh again. “True. Someone is missing. You know how devastating that is.”

Again, she avoids any indication of her party size, except to reference this Stephanie person. This woman was really good at choosing the information she divulged, like she’d been trained. You probably have to be to survive in this Gotham.

“Yeah,” Wally said, “I do.”

“Can we talk again tomorrow?”

Wally didn’t see any harm in that. She might be able to help him at some point and hell, Wally might even run into this Stephanie woman at some point. “Okay,” he replied.

“How about at noon?” she asked. “There was a watch in the backpack, right?”

Wally glanced at his watch. 9:48. “Noon works for me.”

“What can I call you?” she asked, and now she sounded hard, voice like gravel.

“Rick,” Wally said, immediately mentally slapping himself. Rick? Really? He didn’t even want to know where that came from.

“Okay, Rick,” she said. “I look forward to talking to you tomorrow. I’m Oracle.”

\--

Using the flashlight he found in the backpack, Wally made small stacks of rubble in the path through the debris that lead to the desk, many haphazardly stacked rubble piles that would be impossible to avoid completely in the dark while crawling.

The theory was that if someone came in while he was sleeping, Wally would wake and at least have enough time to flee with his superspeed before there was any damage done. If he could get by them.

He knew it wasn’t much of a defense, especially given his exhaustion until he recovered but he felt better going to bed knowing that it was at least something.

And it was. Something, because Wally had almost half a second from the time he woke to the time he realized he wasn’t alone. Whoever it was was stealthy, Wally had to give them that.

They were close, having nearly made it through the entire maze of rubble piles before knocking one of the closer ones over just on the other side of the desk.

Quietly, Wally grabbed the backpack he’d repacked before going to bed and wound the blanket over his arm to bring with him.

He calculated his options quickly, a dozen different strategies and possible outcomes flowing through his mind faster than any normal person could form two words. His body began to buzz, tense, ready to flee or fight.

It was likely that whoever it was had been sent by Oracle, was Oracle herself, or even the missing Stephanie. But given the size of Gotham, it could be anyone.

Wally wouldn’t be able to go at top speeds crawling, but he could still move his limbs faster than almost anyone he knew. The problem would be getting around the intruder, because the path was so narrow.

The widest part was at the place where you rounded the corner to the desk, the space there nearly twice the size of the path. It was Wally’s best bet at slipping by them.

As quietly as he could, Wally slipped the flashlight from his bag. He’d probably need it to negotiate the path through the building, but since it was a Maglite, it doubled as a blunt weapon.

The idea of having to hurt someone to get by them churned Wally’s stomach, but if it meant his life, if it meant finding a way home, the choice was easy.

His escape hinged on perfect timing. If he wasn’t fast enough, if he was grabbed, Wally didn’t know how long he would last. His body is still exhausted from earlier and he knew his speed wouldn’t last long.

The element of surprise was probably the only thing he had on his side, he concluded. Sure, whoever was out there might know that Wally was there, but they might not know that he was awake. If Wally could just rush them, use surprise to get past them, then he might have a chance.

The slight scuffle of footsteps slowed as the intruder approached the turn. Wally steadied himself and rushed forward blindly. At the last second, he switched on the flashlight, hoping to shine it in their eyes to temporarily blind them. But Wally wasn’t ready for what he saw.

He’d been expecting a someone, a person, but this creature was unlike anything else he’d ever seen before. It was big with four legs and thick black fur and there was a scary intelligence in its eyes, like it had anticipated this very thing. Wally would say that it reminded him of a wolf, but it seemed much closer to a bear, maybe a jaguar.

The creature lunged at Wally and instinctively, Wally’s arms went up to protect his throat and face. The flashlight and backpack fell to the ground, the flashlight rolling away to bump into the underside of the desk.

It began swinging its head from side to side, trying to get past Wally’s arms. It growled, the sound a menacing cut through the air. Foul smelling breath fanned across Wally’s face and he gagged. Long strings of drool dripped from its mouth, one of them landing directly in Wally’s eyes. He yelped, moved to wipe it away, and it was enough for the creature. It reared back and lunged again.

Wally quickly realized his mistake and threw his arm back up, positive that his speed was the only thing that saved him from getting his face off ripped off. Instead, its jaw closed around his arm.

Luckily, it was the arm he’d wrapped the blanket around just moments before. It blocked some of the power of the creature’s jaw, but Wally could still feel the dagger-like teeth ripping into his skin.

The creature began swinging its head from side to side again, trying to rip Wally’s arm off. Wally seized the opportunity and used his other arm to feel around wildly for a moment before his fingertips brushed the flashlight. He could feel the blood pouring from where the creature’s teeth dug in more harshly, but adrenaline blocked out a lot of the pain.

Wally attempted to shift his body closer to the flashlight, but the creature wasn’t having it. It bore down and shook its head back and forth with more strength, more speed.

Wally knew if he couldn’t get to the flashlight, which was blunt enough to (hopefully) do some damage, then he was dead. So he did the only thing he could think of and jammed a finger as hard as he could into the creature’s eye.

It shrieked loudly in pain and let go of him. In the limited light from the flashlight on the ground, Wally could see that it was getting ready to rear back again.  He used the opportunity, and his speed, to snatch the flashlight in his hand and roll to the side.

The creature growled when it realized that it didn’t land on Wally and began turning toward him. Wally didn’t hesitate, just swung his arm back as much as he could in the limited space and laid into the creature.

It howled again, trying to regroup, trying to get away, but Wally swung the flashlight again and again just shy of the speed of sound. The creature didn’t have enough time to get away between swings before the flashlight crushed down into it again.

The way the light swung around the small space each time Wally brought the flashlight down was completely dizzying, and at some point, long after the creature had stopped moving, Wally realized it had gone completely dark.

Wally slowly came back to himself, the adrenaline fading, the pain growing, his chest rising and falling harshly with the effort of each breath.

He looked around the small enclosure, but he could see nothing. His body was drenched from so much blood, both his own and the creatures undoubtedly, and he began to shiver violently.

Feeling around for his new backpack with his good hand, Wally found it and dragged it to him. After unzipping it, he pulled out the first aid kit, snapped it open and felt around until he found the gauze. He carefully shrugged his arm out of the jacket and tore the tattered remains of his uniform from his arm.

Wally couldn’t see what he was doing, but his arm was in so much pain that he was pretty sure he knew right where his wounds are, winding the gauze around and around and around as he lost sensation. He felt his body locking up, going into shock, and then his eyes closed as he fell unconscious.

\--

_Bludhaven  
July 21, 2016_

For days, people tried to get ahold of Dick. Barbara, Tim, Artemis, Kaldur and Roy, everyone. He let the phone ring and ring and before long, his inbox of text messages and voicemails became full and he let his phone go dead.

It shouldn’t have surprised Dick that Bruce showed up at his apartment like he did. Bruce knew what it was like to mourn and he knew Dick. He couldn’t do much for Dick much at the moment, but he could give him space.

But the days turned into weeks which turned into a month and still Dick remained out of contact, off the grid, and Bruce became worried. He looked into Dick’s recent purchases and found that many of them were online purchases of books (he could easily find what sort of book they were, but Bruce wasn’t worried enough for that just yet) and at least two dozen payments at restaurants, primarily in Keystone City and Bludhaven.

That made Bruce frown. Coupled with the off-handed comment from Barry that his grandson had been acting strange, reserved, lately, Bruce was positive that Bart Allen had something to do with Dick’s odd behavior of late.

He was happy at least that Dick wasn’t keeping himself locked in his apartment even if he was shutting himself off from everyone (everyone but Bart Allen apparently), but it still didn’t put Bruce’s mind at ease.

Dick was an adult, going on twenty, and had worked as a vigilante for nearly a decade. He knew what he was doing, Bruce knew that Dick knew what he was doing. But it didn’t change the fact that Dick had lost his best friend who, as Bruce knew, had really meant a lot more than that to Dick.

Bruce would never tell anyone how to mourn, he had no room to, but Dick was acting weird and he was worried. If Bruce was being honest, it smelled a lot like the preparations for a mission of some sort, something perhaps only Bart could help him with. Given Bart’s ties to the future and his ties to Wally, that too worried Bruce.

At first, he didn’t think Dick was going to let him in when he showed up, but finally, he heard his son’s footsteps as he made his way to the door and ushered him inside.

Maybe Bruce had been a little too optimistic about the fact that Dick had been leaving his apartment, thinking it meant that he was actually taking care of himself. He wasn’t. His dark hair hung across his forehead in greasy ropes, several days’ worth stubble covered his face, and the bags under his eyes were a deep purple. His clothes were wrinkled within an inch of their life and he smelled like he’d run out of deodorant days ago and simply forgot to get more.

Which was all still better than Dick’s apartment, which was littered with food containers and newspapers, water bottles and clothes. And it reeked.

“Hey Bruce,” Dick finally managed after they’d stared at each other awkwardly for nearly a minute.

Never one to beat around the bush, Bruce narrowed his eyes, and asked, “What’s going on, Dick?”

Dick released a deep breath and said, “I can’t tell you. Not yet. But I might need your help at some point. Maybe.”

“Dick,” Bruce began, “if you’re getting into something over your head-”

“I’m not,” Dick said quickly. “It isn’t like that. I’m fine.”

They both knew his last statement was a great stretch of the truth, but Bruce let it pass. Dick didn’t act like he was in over his head, just consumed. He hoped that it was a good distinction.

“You’re working with Bart Allen,” Bruce said, a statement more than anything else.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep him safe,” Dick replied, and Bruce wondered if Dick would have said it with such conviction if Bart hadn’t been Wally’s cousin. Yes, he thought, it was Dick and he would have. But it wasn’t really Bart he was worried about.

Bruce looked at him hard for a moment.

“Bruce, I need you to trust me. Okay?” and there, that earnest look Dick got when he was impassioned, motivated, spread across his face. It was good to see.

“Of course,” Bruce said at once. “I trust you more than anyone Dick.”

At that, Dick smiled. It wasn’t one of his usual wide, jovial smiles, but it was still a smile and to Bruce, that was a victory in itself.

“For now, can you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“As you probably already know, I’m working on something. It’s time consuming and requires a lot of my concentration. I might drop off the grid. I…I need you to keep the others at bay. Just for now.”

Bruce sighed. He hated the idea of helping Dick cut himself off from the people that cared about him, but he knew that it was what Dick wanted. “Absolutely,” Bruce said, “and anything else you need. Don’t hesitate.”

“Thanks, Bruce,” Dick said, enveloping himself in Bruce’s arms. Bruce hugged him back, hugged him hard, and wondered when his son had gotten so damned tall.

\--

_Wayne Tech remains – Gotham City  
June 21, 2051_

Wally woke shivering. It was the first thing he noticed, just how cold he was.

He tried to open his eyes, but something held them shut. The quick build of panic began to take hold, but he pushed it down. He’d been in worse situations before. He was trained better than that. And the first thing he was taught in all situations was to take note of his surroundings. So he did exactly that.

His eyes might not open, but Wally could see some light through his eyelids. It isn’t much, but it was there. The next thing he noticed is that his arm hurt. A lot. Like someone tried to rip it right off.

And that’s when Wally remembered that someone, or rather something, did try to rip it off him.

It started coming back to him. He wasn’t kidnapped, he was attacked and he killed whatever the fuck it was that tried to get him. Which was only after he woke up in a freaking apocalypse in some version of goddamn Gotham City and sought shelter in one of Batman’s buildings.

For some reason, it was something of a comfort to know that, while this might not be Wally’s home, Bruce Wayne, his best friend’s dad, the freaking Batman, at least exists. Or did.

He remembered using rocks and rubble as a primitive alert system just in case there were intruders. Which apparently worked, because he had woken up and managed to kill the whatever-it-is after it turned his arm into a meat puree.

That’s when he remembered talking to a woman. Oracle, she called herself.

Tentatively, Wally brought the fingers of his good arm to his face. He could feel long scratches and scabs that hadn’t yet healed. His fingertips brushed his nose and he hissed in pain, remembering that he’d broken it after eating pavement.

His fingers moved to his eyelids next and found them crusted over with something. Blood, either his own or of that thing he killed. His mouth felt pretty dry, but Wally wetted his fingertips and began to work some of the blood from one of his eyes. When the eye was damp enough, he cracked it open and began to sit up.

Vertigo slammed him right back down, the air expelling from his chest in a rush as his back reconnected with the ground.

Breathing deeply, Wally used his good arm to ease himself into a sitting position. His head was still swimming, but it wasn’t as bad as before. He located his backpack, pulled out a bottle of water, and downed half of it before dumping some on his fingers to remove the blood from his other eye.

With his vision cleared, Wally took everything in.

His leg was tangled up under the body of the thing he killed, little more now than dried blood and black fur pulp. It really disturbed Wally that he’d slept so close to it during the night. The creature didn’t look as big as it had last night, but Wally lost complete control for a while as he wailed on it, which accounted for the flattened look. It had been bigger.

The sight of it, and the sudden smell of so much blood, made Wally’s stomach churn. He dislodged his leg from beneath the animal and crawled, bad arm pressed tight to his chest, until he was on the other side of the desk.

It was only a few feet, but it left Wally panting and exhausted and took him several moments to catch his breath. Once he finally did, he turned his attention to the bites on his arm. He’d passed out in the process of wrapping it up in gauze last night. It may have slowed the bleeding some, but it hadn’t been cleaned and Wally didn’t really want to think about what sort of future and/or alternate dimension germs it had on its teeth.

Grasping the gauze, which was more dark red than pristine white, he started to unwind it from his arm. After unwinding the top few layers, he met some resistance as the blood stuck to his skin. Wally grabbed his water bottle and began to pour it over the gauze in the hope it would loosen the dried blood some. It helped, but Wally still felt a dull pain as the bloody bandages were pulled from his skin.

He wasn’t prepared for the damage he saw when he finally got a good look at his arm. Sure, he’d been expecting deep gashes in the skin, something akin to looking like a meat grinder spit him out. But the oozing puss, the milky green infection, the long spider-webbed dark veins made his chest seize up.

Something wasn’t right, and wasn’t just that he forgot to disinfect it before he passed out from blood loss and exhaustion. Wally’s body could fight off a simple infection, exhausted or not. He could burn off most poisons and venoms rapidly, but whatever was on the creature’s teeth really did a number on him. And, he thought with a shudder, it would likely kill him if he didn’t do something about it. His arm didn’t just look bad, it was bad. He knew had a fever and his body was still drained. Whatever he was infected with didn’t look like it was going to burn off like usual.

It was a pity he didn’t have any of his equipment with him. Taking a sample and running a few simple tests would likely tell him what it was, and how he could cure it. If there was a cure, that was.

Groaning, Wally poured the rest of the water gingerly on his arm. He grabbed an antiseptic wipe from the first aid kit and began to carefully clean it. It scared Wally how little he could feel it. The stinging he’d felt yesterday when he cleaned his wounds was harsh compared to the absolute cold and nothingness he felt in his arm as he ran the wipe across it.

When he cleaned it up the best he could, he grabbed the tube of antibiotics from the kit and began to slather it on. He didn’t want to use too much because it was all he had, but at the same time, the antibiotics were really all he had at the moment, and he didn’t want to have to contemplate other options right now. He needed to get to the Batcave which had to be fully stocked with medical supplies. Or so Wally hoped.

Using the rest of the gauze, he wound his arm tightly, tying it off, before slipping back into his new jacket. The one sleeve wass in tatters, but it would help stave off the cold some. He found a packet of aspirin in the first aid kit and swallowed them dry in the hope that they’d help with his fever.

He pulled his sleeve back to glance at the watch. 10:45. He didn’t have to call Oracle again until noon. That gave him more than an hour to begin what was going to be a slow journey to the Batcave, but at least it would put some distance between him and what was left of the awful night he had.

Wally quickly ate two of the protein bars and repacked his backpack. He tore off a piece of the flimsy blanket and knotted it into a sling for his arm, not wanting to reopen wounds while he traveled. He slung the backpack over his good shoulder and set out. It was difficult crawling out with the use of only one arm, but he managed, becoming winded long before he even reached the entrance of the Wayne Tech building.

It was going to be difficult traveling so far with his injuries, but he pushed it from his mind and took off in the general direction of the Batcave.

He hoped to get there by sundown. The creature that attacked him probably wasn’t the only one and now that his flashlight was broken, it would be next to impossible getting into and navigating the Batcave without any light.

It was probably the blood from when he fell that drew the creature to him in the first place he mused after a few blocks. He might have visually hidden it, but if an animal had a decent sense of smell, it wouldn’t have been hard to detect. He’d have to be more careful with blood from now on.

Every so often, he glanced at his watch, time passing much more quickly than it usually did for him. But he had to keep his appointment with Oracle. If his injury got much worse, he might have to ask for assistance. He wasn’t sure he exactly wanted to, but there would probably be little choice by that point.

Five till, Wally sat down in the entrance of an old building and pulled out the walkie-talkie, slipping the batteries back in. Staring down at the device, a thought occurred to Wally.

At exactly noon, Wally heard Oracle’s voice cut through the static. “Rick? Are you there, Rick?”

“I’m here, Oracle,” he said, startled at how raspy his own voice had become since last night.

“You sound like you’re in pain,” she said, and Wally thought he could hear genuine concern in her voice. He could be wrong.

“Not too much,” Wally admitted. “I’ll survive.” Maybe. Hopefully.

“Rick, are you okay?”

Wally thought about it a moment and decided against telling her about what happened. He was okay for now and it probably wouldn’t be the best idea for her to know he was as vulnerable as he actually was. It was bad enough she already thought he was in pain.

He changed tactics.

“You’re close, aren’t you, Oracle?” he asked.

She was quiet for a long moment before she said, “What makes you say that?”

“Walkie-talkies can only have so much range between them for them to work. This looks like a good one, so it probably has some range, but we still have to be relatively close to be able to talk to each other.”

“Ten miles,” she said.

“What?”

“This particular set of walkie-talkie has a range of ten miles,” she said. Her voice sounded odd to Wally, unreadable. “You know a lot about walkie-talkies.”

“I know some things,” Wally admitted, shifting his arm. A soft groan slipped through his lips.

“Not many people do anymore,” Oracle said. “Especially people like you. Young people. You sound young.”

Wally didn’t know how to respond. If this was how people lived now, in rubble and ruins, and enough time had passed since civilization had fallen, not many people really would know much about electronics and things like that, except for the people old enough to remember them.

“I suppose you’re right about that.”

“Let me help you,” Oracle said. “You’re hurt, Rick, I can hear it in your voice. Something happened since we last talked.”

“I’m not sure if I’m ready for that yet,” Wally admitted.

\--

Before letting Oracle go, Wally promised he’d get ahold of her later at 9. It gave Wally hours to get to the Batcave, but he just hoped that it wouldn’t be out of the ten mile range of the walkie-talkie. But who knew, Oracle could have lied to him. The range could be much closer, she and her party much closer.

He wanted to trust her, he really did, but he was outnumbered and injured and couldn’t even use his speed. For now, he had to keep walking.

As the day progressed, Wally felt himself becoming worse. The numbness in his arm had spread to part of his chest and his fever spiked. Sweat ran down his forehead even as he shivered. Wally slipped the blanket around his body as he walked and it helped for a little while, but it wasn’t long until he could barely stand anymore. He managed to duck into the entrance of an old building before collapsing completely.

He laid there for several minutes, breathing hard, before knowing what he had to do. Pulling out the walkie-talkie and slipping the batteries back in, Wally could only hope that Oracle had hers turned on hours before they were supposed to talk again.

Pressing the ‘talk’ button, Wally weakly said, “Hello? Oracle, are you there?”

An eternity passed before a voice came through the machine. “Oracle isn’t available right now. Is this, uh, Rick?” It was a male voice, older, gruff. Maybe the person he’d heard before. For some reason, his voice reminded Wally of Dick’s voice when a mission went awry. He missed him a lot all of a sudden.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Wally said faintly.

The other person said something that Wally didn’t catch. He was fading in and out of consciousness. If he didn’t want to die, Wally had to steel himself, he had to trust in people he’d never met. He couldn’t lose it now.

“I’m a lot more hurt than I said I was earlier,” he said finally. It took so much effort and made him so tired. He just wanted to sleep. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Where are you?” the man asked. “We can help you.”

“I don’t know,” Wally said. His head was swimming again.

“Details!” the man said. “Give me anything, anything that you see.”

Wally did everything he could to refocus himself, looking around. He knew this area, or he had when Gotham still stood. It wasn’t far from Gotham Municipal Bank, where he’d helped Robin stop a robbery back when they were kids, their first mission where it was just the two of them.

“I’m…a few blocks from Gotham Municipal,” he said, breathing hard. “West of it. I think…the park is…a few blocks north….”

The man said something else, but Wally was already gone.

\--

It had been a long time since Wally shifted this badly between consciousness and unconsciousness, not since the experiment that gave him his speed in the first place. Voices washed over him and each time he managed to crack his eyes open, he saw blurred faces above him. He hoped they were Oracle’s friends.

He was aware of cool hands touching his face. He tried to open his eyes again, but it was too much effort. “God,” he heard someone say, “he looks just like…”

“I know...”

“…Steph’s backpack…"

“…his arm I think…”

“Checked the hideout…dead…blood everywhere…"

“…not going to last the night.”

“We have orders.”

Then someone was lifting him and it hurt so much that he loudly moaned in pain. Every step they took was agony and after one particularly violent jostle, Wally was out again.

\--

_Batcave  
June 21, 2051_

“Are you awake?”

Wally dreamed of a warehouse, Artemis and Dick and Kaldur there. A necklace.

“-don’t think he-“

Dick asking Artemis to go undercover with Kaldur, Artemis jumping at the chance for a mission. So much fighting with Artemis. _“I’m not like you, Wally.”_

“-is responsive to-“

And waiting. So much waiting for Artemis to come back. So angry with her, so angry with Dick, so angry.

“-will just have to wait and see-“

Then she was back and Wally was running by the Eiffel Tower. Eggs, one more, one more left. Not enough kinetic energy, and then so much running. Vanishing, white light, and then his eyes opened up in the middle of the end of the world.

His eyes snapped open.

The room was dim, candlelight flickering across the walls from a table at his bedside. He was in a bed, the blankets tucked up under his chin, but he was still a bit cold, numb. It was a small room, about the size of a hospital room in the emergency room, and cramped.

His arm didn’t hurt exactly, but he didn’t feel much of anything else either. A groan escaped him as he attempted to sit up.

Movement to his left caught his eye, and he looked over in enough time to see a small body slip off a chair and take off running. There was something vaguely familiar about the child, that mop of hair, but Wally pushed that away for now.

“You should take it easy,” a voice said. Wally looked beyond the foot of his bed to see a woman sitting there. It took Wally a moment to realize that she was in a wheelchair and not simply sitting down. Her hair was a deep red and heavily streaked with white. A pair of round glasses were perched in front of bright blue eyes. He was positive he’d seen her before.

Wally frowned at her, easing himself into a sitting position carefully, when it clicked. Eyes widening comically, Wally said, “Barbara?”

A smile spread across her face, and sure enough, it was the teasing smile of Barbara Gordon. She was older, several decades older in fact, but she was unmistakably Batgirl.

Or was.

“I was wondering if you’d know me,” she said, clearly amused.

“Why wouldn’t I know you, Babs? We’ve known each other for years.”

“We weren’t sure where you were from, _Rick_. If it’s some dimension hopping bull, then we might have never met,” she said.

“I’ve been wondering if it was that. Or time travel.”

“What do you think?” she asked, wheeling forward to really get a look at him.

“Honestly, I don’t know. But since you’re here, and you’re older, I’m wanna say time travel,” Wally admitted.

Barbara’s head cocked to the side and she really looked at him. “You’re so young,” she said, and her voice was almost awed. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

“God,” she whistled, “2017?”

“2016.”

“2016,” she repeated. “That’s the year everything went to hell.” She sat back in her chair.

“But we saved the world,” Wally said, softly. “That’s how I ended up here.”

“No,” Barbara said harshly, eyes narrowing, “no, we didn’t.”

“Barbara,” someone said from the doorway. Wally was pretty sure it was the same person he’d talked to right before he lost consciousness.

“Sorry,” Barbara said quickly, smiling sadly at Wally.

But Wally was staring at the man in the doorway. He was a little heavier, but still lithe. His hair was salt and pepper and there were wrinkles around his eyes, but it could only be Dick Grayson.

“Dick,” Wally said softly, smiling. “You got old.”

Wally saw Dick’s eyes perceptively widen before a laugh erupted from his chest. It was deeper than the laughs Wally was used to, but it still had that musicality that was undeniably Dick’s alone.

“Yeah, I suppose I did,” he said, but now the smile was tight on his face, uncomfortable, like it wasn’t accustomed to being there. Wally hated the idea of Dick, any version of Dick at any age, finding it strange to smile.

He stepped into the room, stopping at the foot of the bed. “It’s really good to see you, Wally.” The pained way he said it made Wally pretty sure that his future self was gone. He wasn’t entirely sure, but something in him told him it was the truth.

“You too,” Wally said, smiling, “though I did just see you yesterday, and about forty years younger.”

Dick smiled softly again, but something Wally said makes him think. Forty years. If this was forty or so years in the future, then that little boy…

He looked sharply at the door. Sure enough, peaking around the frame were two wide green eyes and a large mop of auburn hair.

“Bart,” Wally said softly. “Bart.”

The little boy’s eyes widened, and he looked ready to flee again. From his peripheral, Wally saw Dick give Barbara a strange look, but he ignored it, focusing all his attention on the boy.

“Come here, Bart. Please.”

“It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s Wally. You know Wally,” Barbara said, but she sounded confused about how that could be.

Hesitantly, Bart stepped forward. It was hard to tell exactly how old he is, but it didn’t matter because Wally would know his cousin anywhere.

Wally saw decision flicker across his cousin’s face and suddenly the boy was running toward, him climbing on the bed, and flinging himself in Wally’s arms.

“Wally,” he said over and over, “Wally.” Bart was crying and it made Wally’s chest hurt so much. He was sure his arm was still injured, but he didn’t care and wrapped it tightly around Bart’s small body.

“Wally, I missed you so much.” That made Wally positive it was true, that he was dead, and it made him feel ill knowing how much it must have affected the people he loved.

“I missed you too, Bart,” Wally said, smoothing Bart’s floppy hair down. He could see Dick watching the two of them, saw the confusion on his face.

This was Bart’s time, Bart’s world. And suddenly, Wally had an idea about why he’d ended up there.

\--

“We should probably talk,” Wally said later. Bart had fallen asleep on his lap, nestled comfortably in the blankets.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Dick replied. He sat in the chair Wally first saw Bart in earlier.

“How am I doing? Health-wise, I mean.”

Dick sighed, leaning forward in his chair. He winced slightly and that was when Wally comprehended just how old Dick, this Dick, really was. He probably had arthritis and old injuries plaguing him. He probably had more scars than Wally could even count.

“Honestly, if you’d never gotten yourself struck by lightning when you were pre-pubescent, you’d be dead right now,” he said, but he was smiling, glad. “Your accelerated healing was the only thing that kept you alive long enough for us to get to you.”

“Did I get sick from that thing that bit me?” Wally wanted to know.

“Yeah. We call them Watchers,” Dick said. “The Reach created them after the first few purges. They’re used to either track people for capture or find them and put them down.”

“They smelled my blood,” Wally guessed, and Dick nodded.

“We developed an antidote to their venom, but it has to be injected almost immediately or you’re dead. We got it in you right before you started going into convulsions. It’ll take a while for it to completely flush from your system, but you should be fine. There’s some muscle and tissue damage and your arm is fractured, but that should all heal pretty quickly. I think your arm will always be scared pretty badly though.”

“Better scarred than dead. So there are more people here?” Wally asked. He’s pretty sure Barbara wasn’t one of the people that rescued him.

“Yes,” Dick said, “you can meet them tomorrow when they get back. They brought you in and went back out to look for someone.”

“Stephanie?” Wally asked, remembering, and Dick nodded. “Stephanie Brown? The Spoiler?”

“Yeah,” Dick said softly, “that Stephanie,” and Wally knew what that meant to Dick.

Wally had only met her once or twice when Dick absolutely needed him to fill in on missions after his retirement. She was a cheerful, energetic, pretty girl who only wanted to stop her criminal father. She reminded Wally of Artemis when they were still teenagers.

Steph herself had only been about fifteen or sixteen the last time Wally saw her.

“How long has she been missing?” Wally asked, unsure if he really wanted to know the answer. Because no matter what Dick said, being missing for any length of time during a freaking apocalypse couldn’t mean anything good.

Dick sighed again, looking more defeated than Wally had ever seen Dick look, young or old. “A few days. She was sent out for supplies, but she stopped checking in two days ago, and then you called in. We thought you were going to be Stephanie.”

“Babs is the Oracle?”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “After her, ah, injury, she became an information broker for the League. Well, until the League fell to the Reach.”

“Everyone?” Wally asked quietly.

“Just about,” Dick replied. To him, it’s old news, but Wally could tell that it was still painful.

“Most of the metas were caught and moded. Collars. Others, the regular humans, were killed.” Wally didn’t need Dick to say the words _like Batman_ , but they were there.

“What about Uncle Barry?” Wally asked, his body shivering.

Dick frowned at him. “You’re from 2016, right? You should know what happens to the Flash.”

“I saw him right before I wound up in post-apocalyptic Gotham. He was fine,” Wally said adamantly. Unless something similar happened to Uncle Barry but he ended up somewhere else. Wally couldn’t think like that. He was the slow one. He was the one that had what felt like a trillion volts of electricity pierce into his body and, as a result, was displaced.

He had to think that both Uncle Barry and Bart and everyone else were fine.

“What month was it? In the past I mean?”

“It was June 20,” Wally said.

“Wally, Barry Allen died February 28, 2016,” Dick said, and he sounded tired, like he wished he was anywhere else in the world. But if the Reach had anything to say about it, everywhere probably looked a lot like Gotham too.

Wally shook his head. “No, he didn’t. I came out of retirement for the day. We fought and defeated some bald guy named Neutron. Uncle Barry was fine.”

Dick looked confused. “Wally, what exactly happened that day?”

Wally took a deep breath and looked down at his cousin sleeping in his lap. “It’s the day I met Bart,” he said, running his fingers through the boy’s hair. “He saved Uncle Barry that day, I’m sure of it.” He remembered the way Bart had accidently made the Flash trip, how odd he’d acted. Even then, Wally knew he was hiding something.

Bart had saved Uncle Barry just like he’d saved Jaime and the rest of the world. A surge of affection for his cousin jolted through him and he looked down at the sleeping boy, brushing auburn hair from his face.

“You met Bart that day,” Dick repeated, running a hand through his gray hair. Wally looked up at him. He didn’t look as disbelieving as most would after having this conversation, but most people were not Dick Grayson.

“He…he came back in time. In a time machine. He helped us save the world.”

\--

_Watchtower  
July 26, 2016_

“What’s with you lately, _ese_?” Jaime asked as he sat down next to his friend, voice ringing out in the otherwise quiet room.

Bart looked up. He’d been staring at the floor for minutes, deep in thought, his body buzzing unconsciously. His green eyes stared into Jaime’s dark ones, and he felt his heart begin to race like it always did when Jaime was in his presence.

Bart hated how much of an affect Jaime had on him. They’d only know each other a handful of months, which made it unnerving how well Jaime could read him. And there was also the whole Blue Beetle of the future thing, but Jaime made it so easy for Bart to forget that sometimes. He was glad of it.

“Nothing.”

Jaime sighed. “Now I know that isn’t true.” He turned away from Bart, relaxing into the couch. As far as he knew, they were alone in the Young Justice wing of the Watchtower.

He’d noticed how Bart had changed after the funeral, but it wasn’t just the changes that came with loss, with mourning. Bart had become secretive. He was harder to get ahold of and went off the grid for hours at a time. Even Barry and Iris and Jay and Joan became worried when Jaime showed up at their houses looking for Bart when he was supposedly away on a mission.

“You know me, _hermano_. Totally crash, cool as a cucumber. That’s what you guys say now, right? Cool as a cucumber?”

“Stop trying to change the subject, Bart. I know something is wrong.” It might have come out as a demand, but Jaime’s voice wasn’t demanding. It was calm, raspy, low, and hearing it made the hair on Bart’s arms stand on end.

Bart sighed. “I can’t tell you. God, I wish that I could, but I made a promise to someone really important to me. I already broke my promise once and got someone else involved when I swore I wouldn’t. So please don’t ask me to do it again. I’m not sure it’s even the right choice. I mean, I am, but I’m…not.”

Jaime’s turned to face Bart, leaning his side into the back of the couch. He could tell that Bart needed someone to talk to, that whatever it was he was caught up in was so much bigger than himself, but Jaime would never force Bart to do anything Bart was against. He wouldn’t even suggest it.

“It has to do with Wally,” Bart said finally, and now he was turned to face Jaime too.

They regarded each other for a long moment before Jaime said, “I know it does, _ese_.” Bart had told him some things about his life in the future, but there were huge, gaping holes, ones that probably shouldn’t matter now that the Reach had been defeated. Yet still Bart kept those secrets to himself, so Jaime could only surmise it had something to do with that.

Maybe Bart was planning on trying to find a way home.

“It, well, it might not end up being about ‘what’s wrong,’” Bart said cryptically. “What if I said it might be about what’s right?”

Bart face was so conflicted, so earnest, that it made Jaime’s breath catch.

“You already saved the world, Bart. What more can you possibly do that you haven’t already done?” And, in a quieter voice, he added, “You saved me.”

Bart closed his eyes, kept them closed for nearly a minute, and Jaime watched the way his auburn eyelashes fanned across his cheeks until Bart reopened them. “What if I knew something that could make people happy. Like, really, really happy. People that I care about. What if I could make the people I love most really, really happy after everything we’ve all been through?”

Jaime reached forward and briefly grasped Bart’s arm. “I don’t have enough information to give you a definitive answer, Bart. But I don’t think there’s ever any harm in making the people we care about happy.”

The smile that spread across Bart’s face nearly made Jaime’s heart stop. It was wide and true and, cliché or not, it literally lit up Bart’s entire face. Wow.

“Yeah,” Bart said, still smiling, “you’re right.”

And then he leaned forward and kissed him.

\--

_Batcave  
June 21, 2051_

Not long later, Dick recommended that Wally get some rest, promising they’d talk more in the morning. Wally was exhausted, but after Dick blew out the candles, he found himself unable to sleep. Instead, he curled around Bart’s small body (he found out that his cousin was currently eight years old), and just thought.

The memories of what happened, of how he ended up in Gotham, came back earlier. He was sure they were able to create enough kinetic energy to stop the chrysalis, positive of it. Had to be.

He remembered being fully prepared to die, watching his body fade away, seeing the terrified look on Uncle Barry’s face as he realized it too. But instead of fading from existence, Wally had ended up in the year 2051, almost five years before Bart left the future and showed up in the present his time machine.

At one point, he must have drifted off because he woke to voices arguing. Dick and Barbara. He opened his eyes and he could see them through the open doorway.

“Are you really sure you want to put yourself through this?” Barbara asked. Her voice was tense, worried. “After everything you’ve just been through. After everything we’ve all just been through.”

“It might hurt,” Dick insisted, “but we can’t just turn him out. It’s Wally.”

“But what about Bart? He lost him too. And this nonsense about a time machine? Dick, he sounds absolutely insane! How do we know for sure this is even the same Wally?”

“Babs, it really isn’t as crazy as it sounds,” Dick said in a quiet voice. He sighed. Wally noticed he’d been doing that a lot. “I told you about what he did when he was younger. How is this any different?”

“Dick…”

“Babs, how else could he possibly know Bart? How else could he know so much?”

Babs began to speak before she paused, seeing Wally awake and staring at them through the open doorway. Her mouth shut, and she rolled away.

Dick’s eyes lingered on him, his face unreadable, before he too walked away. Wally squeezed his eyes shut tightly, and wished more than he had in the last two days, wished more than ever, that he was back home.

 


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few flashbacks, a few explanations, and a roadtrip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got this chapter finished a lot faster than I thought I would. It's been a lot of fun to write and I'm really enjoying it. I'm not scientist, so some of the explanations you'll read in this chapter are explained as I understand them or tweaked a bit to fit into the story. Call it creative license? Anyway, enjoy!

Part 2

\--

_Palo Alto  
December 6, 2015_

Wally has long grown used to waking to the sound of his comm. going off in the middle of the night. Officially, he was retired, but that didn’t really stop him from keeping it all him at all times. Old habits die hard, and all that. 

Mostly, it was because he worried. Wally had watched his best friend grow more and more reckless as grew up, not so much with the team but with himself. While in charge of the team, Dick was careful at all times. They had lost Jason and Tula and they all took it hard, but no one took it was hard as Dick did except for maybe Kaldur. She was the reason he helped plan the foolhardy undercover mission in the first place. Discovering that Manta was his father was just an added bonus because it made it so much easier to infiltrate when you were the boss’ kid. 

No, it was when Dick relocated to Bludhaven in his attempts to save a city even farther gone than Gotham herself that Dick became reckless. He was the only known vigilante in town and try as he might, he often got in over his head. Hence why Wally carried his comm. 

He and Dick had been on the outs lately, but never did Wally want to get the call that something had happened, that Dick was gone. Not when there was something he could do about it himself. 

So when Nightwing’s voice crackled through over the comm. asking for assistance from anyone in the immediate area of Bludhaven, Wally sprang from his bed, quickly donning his Kid Flash ring, changing, and flying out the door. 

Artemis never said anything as he got out of bed in the middle of the night, just sighed and watched him go. Wally knew it was hypocritical. Because they were out of the business, because they were going to graduate and build a life together and see where it went from there. He knew that it was in their blood. He knew that it was why she’d jumped at the chance to take the undercover mission when Nightwing came calling. And he knew that there was nothing he can say to talk her out of it because she craved the missions and helping people and being a part of a team. 

Somewhere deep down, Wally knows it’s the beginning of the end for them, but it didn’t make it hurt any less when they started to argue almost constantly in the weeks leading up to her departure. It was this night that, later when they began to fight, Artemis brought up over and over, this night and others like it where Wally put the uniform back on.

Because for as much as Wally claimed to be out of the game, he found himself back in his suit heading to Bludhaven often enough. Semi regular basis, Artemis will spit out at him. She was angry, but never really at him and never at his innate willingness to help those he cared about. Just angry at the fact that they didn’t seem to be working like they used, that things were always going wrong, hoping that maybe the mission, the distance will give them each a chance to get some much needed space and perspective.

At the moment, that’s neither here nor there.

Wally sprinted to the nearest zeta tube, pressing his comm. and saying, “Kid Flash to Nightwing. ETA less than two minutes. What’s your location and the status of your situation?”

Dick rattled off his location and Wally could hear the strain in Dick’s voice. He was clearly injured, grunting painfully as he, presumably, flipped through the air. “Good to hear from you, Kid Flash. I’m currently doing combat with two dozen of the Scarecrow’s hired hands. I think he’s missed me and decided to pay a visit.” 

Wally heard as Dick inhaled sharply before he added, “Well, two dozen and counting. Honestly, I’m beginning to feel a little _over_ whelmed for once, so if you could hurry?”

“Roger that, Nightwing.” 

He hears Dick gasp over the comm., hears the sudden anxiety in Dick’s voice when he says, “I need you here now, KF. I just got gassed with fear toxin and it’s going to take hold in seconds.”

Wally hurried, running as hard as he could. He arrived at Dick’s location, an abandoned warehouse, and burst inside without a second thought. Nightwing looked haggard, slow, as he fought in the middle of a swarm of bodies. He was on his feet, but barely, and Wally knew he wasn’t going to last much longer. The Scarecrow looked long gone, confident that he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. He was probably still in the vicinity if he’d just left seconds before Wally arrived, but getting Dick out of there was the priority at the moment.

Wally threw himself into the fray, kicking and punching his way at superspeed to get to the middle, where Dick was finally collapsing. He grabbed his friend and sprinted to one of the sides before setting him on the ground. It would be easier to fight without having to watch his back. 

The good thing was that none of the goons seemed particularly trained so they went down without much of a struggle. It was clear they didn’t know how to handle a speedster and simply aimed blindly for him, making it easy to dodge. Wally dropped the last of them like a sack of shit and ran back over to Dick. 

Kneeling next to his friend, Wally saw that he wasn’t exactly unconscious but he didn’t seem quite with it either. Wally lightly slapped his cheek to get his attention. “C’mon, Rob,” he said, “I need to know where you keep the antidote so I can help you. You don’t exactly have a utility belt anymore, but I know you have it on you somewhere. You’re a bat, you have to.”

When Dick was unresponsive, Wally slapped him harder and flipped the switch that made his lenses disappear. Dick’s pupils were blown wide, nearly absorbing the blue of his unfocused eyes. Then Dick started whimpering in a way Wally had never heard before, small releases of noise that reminded him of Brucely when he cowered whenever Bart was over. Frankly, it terrified him.

“Fuck it,” Wally said, leaning down to scoop his friend up. It wasn’t as easy to do now that Dick had finally hit, and conquered, puberty a few years ago. He was still lithe, had the body of an adult acrobat, but was solid dead weight. Once Wally was running though, Dick would feel weightless and it would no longer matter.

He hesitated briefly, just a millisecond. He could either run Dick to the nearest zeta tube and call to request Batman give him temporary access to the Batcave, which would take time and he didn’t know if Batman was even in the Cave. He could have been on Watchtower duty just as easily. Or Wally could go straight to Dick’s apartment where Dick was sure to have a whole slew of antidotes for Scarecrow’s fear toxin.

He opted for the later. At some point, Dick dug his fingers into Wally and held on like his life depended on it. Wally felt his best friend’s gaze on him as he ran, Dick’s jaw slack and trembling like the rest of his body. 

Wally ran faster. 

Luckily Dick’s building had a fire escape that nearly went to the roof. Wally ran up it and horizontally up the side of the building for the last floor or so, his momentum pushing him forward. With one hand, he sprung the trapdoor that dropped straight down into Dick’s apartment and jumped down. 

Wally placed Dick atop his bed and sprinted to the cupboard Dick kept his medical supplies. While rummaging through Dick’s vials of antidotes, Wally placed a call in to the Bludhaven PD, informing them of the warehouse full of unconscious goons and, more importantly, of the Scarecrow on the loose in Bludhaven and in possession of his fear toxin. Before the operator could ask too many questions, Wally cut the call. 

Finally finding what he was looking for, Wally grabbed a vial of the antidote, alcohol wipes, and a package of syringes and made his way back to the bed. Dick still laid there, his whole body shaking. Wally saw his eyes darting back and forth across the ceiling. He set the supplies on the nightstand. 

He pressed his comm. again and said, “Kid Flash to Batman. It’s about Nightwing.”

Batman responded almost immediately. “Batman here. Report.” 

“Nightwing was gassed by Scarecrow’s fear toxin. I’ve got him, uh, at his base and am about to administer the antidote. He’s walked me through it, but I’ve never done it before. I don’t know if there’s anything special I should do.”

Batman rattled off instructions and requested that Wally keep him updated, especially since Scarecrow was more than fond of coming up with new strains of his fear toxin, and if this was the case, Wally was to get him to the Batcave asap. Alfred would be on standby. 

After Wally administered the antidote, Dick seemed to calm down some. His eyes had closed and his body stopped shaking, but he’d yet to regain consciousness. As Wally looked at him, he couldn’t help but see the scrawny little kid that’d been his best friend since they first met when Wally was eleven. Roy was cool and Kaldur was kind, but Robin just seemed to get Wally, and they clicked right away. He smiled fondly at the memory. Lately, his relationship with Dick was every bit as strained (probably more so) than his relationship with Artemis, and it was killing Wally because he felt like he was failing everyone. He had to try harder to make amends if he could.

He went over to Dick’s dresser and grabbed an old t-shirt, a Stanford one Wally’d given him a few years ago, and a pair of basketball shorts to change Dick into. Wally could see that Dick’s forehead was wet with sweat, which meant that his body inside his Kevlar suit had to be just drenched. He found the nearly invisible zipper and dragged it down, slipping his friend’s upper body out of the sleeves. At one point, Wally lost his grip on Dick because his skin was so slick, and Dick slumped back to the mattress.  
Wally waited for his friend to wake up, to grumble at him for dropping him, but he remained still. Taking a deep breath, Wally moved to pull the rest of the uniform off when he caught himself staring at Dick’s chest. 

Dick was covered with long scars from knives and round bullet holes and other ones from injuries Wally couldn’t identify. Wally had retired, but Dick hadn’t and for some reason it hurt to know that Dick went right on throwing himself into the action, getting injuries, getting into trouble like he did tonight. Most of the scars Wally could identify, but there were so many that were new, not having even faded to white just yet. 

Absently, he traced a long one that ran down Dick’s lower stomach. It was probably several weeks old, but still had the pinkness of a healing injury. Wally felt his chest constrict when he realized that he had no idea how Dick had gotten it, had gotten many of them. His best friend’s body told a history that Wally buried his head in the sand to. It was moments like this that made Wally regret his decision to quit the business.

His fingers moved on from that scar to another, lightly stroking it. Before he knew it, Wally began to feel a strange quiver in his lower gut. Gasping, he snatched his hand back.

Wally had always known his friend was attractive, a catch, but it had been years since he’d felt anything like that towards Dick. Back then, Dick had been so young, so _straight_ that Wally pushed his feelings deep down, choosing to ignore them. Eventually, he fell for Artemis and his feelings for Dick faded. 

Apparently not, not entirely at least.

He knew that if he wanted to fix things with Artemis, he couldn’t think about Dick like that, couldn’t touch him like that. He could only imagine what Dick would have said had he been awake. _Enough of those Roman hands and Russian fingers, eh Baywatch. I don’t swing that way._

Or something. 

He took an almost clinical approach as he finished divesting Dick of his Nightwing uniform and dressing him in sleep clothes. He was still sweaty (and more than a bit stinky), but Wally didn’t think he could handle it if he made strides to clean Dick. Instead, he grabbed a washcloth for Dick’s face from the bathroom and wetted it with cold water to help cool him down.

Wally was gently mopping Dick’s face, brushing sweaty black strands of hair from his face, when his eyes snapped open. Wally quickly uncapped the water bottle he’d grabbed earlier and handed it to Dick. 

Dick rose to his elbows and chugged half of it before setting it down on the nightstand, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Thanks,” he said, his voice raspy. He regarded Wally for a moment before asking, “What happened?”

“Scarecrow was gone by the time I got there and you were nearly down, so I got you out, knocked all those pricks unconscious, and brought you back here. Called Batman for help with the antidote,” Wally said. He’d just realized that one of his hands was still smoothing back Dick’s hair, yanking it back to fall on his lap.

“You know they were all hopped up on fear toxin too, right?” Dick said. Some of the strange hollowness had gone from his face and he looked more like himself. “Scarecrow gassed the whole warehouse. You weren’t affected at all?”

“I guess not,” Wally replied shrugging. “Between it dissipating and my metabolism, it hasn’t bothered me. I didn’t even realize all those guys were affected too. I bet the BPD wished I would have said something.”

Dick laughed and Wally felt that small spark in his stomach smolder. Fuck.

“Probably,” Dick said with a snort. He didn’t sound quite like himself yet, but it was close. “Scarecrow’s goons are going to be a handful for a while. I’m reasonably sure they have an antidote though.”

“Reasonably sure,” Wally repeated, ignoring what was happening inside him. 

Dick grinned. “But seriously, thanks, Wally. You really saved my ass. Though now Batman knows about you putting on the uniform sometimes.”

Wally raised an eyebrow. “You really think _Batman_ didn’t know before?”

“Point taken.”

“I just hope he doesn’t say anything to Uncle Barry. I don’t want to get his hopes up.”

Dick’s smile slide off his face. “Because you aren’t officially back as a hero,” he stated evenly.

“Right,” Wally replied, his eyes darting from Dick’s face to stare at his hands. Here he was sitting on Dick’s bed with him while in his Kid Flash uniform and somehow it felt incredibly right and wrong at the same time. He knew Dick was disappointed that he wasn’t announcing that he was coming out of retirement, but Wally wanted a different life, he was sure of it.

The silence between them stretched on until finally Wally cleared his throat and asked, “Do you want to talk about it? What you saw after you were gassed, I mean.”

Dick sighed, moving to sit up. Wally immediately sprang up to help him, but Dick shook him off. “I’ve been infected with fear toxin before, so it wasn’t really as bad as then. But I kept seeing things, the things of my nightmares.”

Dick seemed hesitant, staring off almost eerily like he had before. Wally didn’t want to push him, not if Dick didn’t want to talk about it. Just when he was about to change the subject, Dick said, “Like my parents’ death. Only it wasn’t just them falling, but everyone I care about. Bruce, Tim, Damian, Alfred, the team. I saw Jason getting beaten by the Joker, saw Tula dying.” 

He breathed in sharply and Wally looked up at him again. “And then I saw you and me, us dying together just like we did during that failsafe exercise from when we were kids.”

“I still think about that sometimes,” Wally admitted, eyes darting at his hands again while he played with his gloves. 

“Yeah,” Dick said faintly, “I do too.”

Almost shyly, Wally looked back at him again, noting the intense look in Dick’s blue eyes, and said, “The last thing I remember thinking, right before the end, was that there was no one I’d rather die with.”

“Yeah,” Dick said again, his voice deep with emotion, “I thought the same thing.” _And I still feel that way._

Wally left Bludhaven just as light began to filter in through Dick’s blinds. Dick called Batman just before he left, assuring his adoptive father that everything was fine, and that yes, he would go get fully checked out by Alfred in a few hours. 

It was still dark when he made it back to Palo Alto due to the time difference, giving him a few more hours of sleep before he had to go to class in the morning. He quietly changed back into his pajamas and crawled into bed. Artemis sleepily rolled over to him, and he slipped his arm around her. He stared at the ceiling for the next few hours, and all he could think about was what Dick said to him right before he left.

_You look better in the uniform now than you ever have, Wally. I’ve really missed it._

\--

_Batcave  
June 22, 2051_

Sometime during the night, Wally’s fever spiked, back with a vengeance. He woke to a wide-eyed Bart staring down at him, a small flashlight in his hand. Bart looked close to tears and it was that understanding that made Wally realize how much his head was swimming. He felt terrible. 

“Wally?” Bart asked, and Wally felt tears fall onto his clammy forehead as Bart leaned over him. 

“Hey there kiddo,” Wally replied faintly. 

“Are you okay, Wally?” Bart asked him, his eyes perfectly round and bottom lip trembling.

“Truthfully, I’m not feeling so hot right now, Imp,” Wally said, forcing himself to smile at his cousin. He was pretty sure it came out as more of a grimace than anything. 

Bart moved his flashlight to his other hand and pressed the back of his hand to Wally’s forehead, reminding Wally of being a kid and having his mother do that whenever he was sick. Absently, Wally wondered if Bart’s mom had even lived long enough to comfort her child the same way, and it made him really sad. 

Wally was just about to ask Bart to run and get either Dick or Barbara, but he felt himself growing hazier. He was vaguely aware of Bart leaping off the bed and, using his speed, yelling as he ran, “Dickie! Barbara! It’s Wally,” before Wally once again succumbed. 

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he woke up again. There was another candle burning on the table next to him and Bart was once again kneeling on the bed and peering down at Wally. He noticed Dick fiddling what looked like a tray of needles next to his bed. “Hey,” he managed, still groggy.

“That was fast,” Dick said. “I just finished administering the final shot.”

Groaning, Wally began to sit up. “What happened?”

“You passed out!” Bart said, latching onto his arm and hugging it. “I was scared!”

Wally brushed some of the hair from Bart’s face and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, before turning his attention back to Dick. Dick finished repacking the supplies into a kit, and said, “Babs is pretty sure that there was still some residual poison in your system that was bringing on the symptoms again. The antidote we gave you before might not have been a high enough dose for a speedster, so we had to give you another.”

“Why do you think it made me okay for a while before coming back? Usually my system can fight off poisons pretty fast.”

“Honestly?” Dick said, running a hand through his hair, “We’ve never had to administer it to a meta before. Bart’s the only one in our group since…And well, it probably _did_ work. For a while. You got bit pretty badly several times, injecting a lot of the poison right into your blood. A little nip is enough to bring someone down without your regenerative abilities if they aren’t treated right away. Your body probably burned through the antidote while there was still some of the poison left in your system. Also, it’s Reach technology so it isn’t like any of the poisons you might be used to.

“We might even need to administer it again, just in case. We’ll have to watch you carefully over the next few days, okay?” 

Wally noticed just how tired Dick looked. It was still bizarre seeing his best friend aged decades, literally overnight. He couldn’t even comprehend the life Dick had led since the Reach took over. All the people he’d lost, how hard he tried to survive for those left, resisting, fighting, keeping hope alive. It had all taken its toll and it showed.

“Okay,” Wally said with a smile. He wanted to lighten the mood, wanted to do right by these two people that were incredibly important to him. 

Usually, Wally opted for humor, but what good was that to people that had seen the world collapse around them? Or maybe it was just what they needed. Bart was still so small, so young, and once again Wally wondered if the reason he had made it to the future was so he could save his cousin. To send him back in time to try and set things right, of which Wally’s reasonably sure they did do, though it was hard to say because it wasn’t like Wally was around for the aftermath. 

The three of them lapsed into a silence before Bart tugged on Wally’s arm and said, “You called me Imp earlier.” The grip on his arm was tight, like Bart needed Wally as an anchor to keep him there. “Like a little monster from the fairy tale books you used to read me before you died?”

And there is was, a confirmation. It left a strange hollowness in Wally’s chest to know for sure. 

Wally heard Dick’s sharp intake of breath, could feel Dick’s gaze heavy on him, but Wally couldn’t bring himself to look at first. Finally, he turned his head and he saw Dick crumble. Wally reached out and wrapped this hand around Dick’s arm. Almost forty years older or not, he could be his best friend’s anchor too if Dick needed him.

Wally shook his head. “No, Imp as in short for Impulse,” he said, smiling faintly at his cousin and giving Dick’s arm a light squeeze. He did his best not to draw attention to the shudder he felt ripple through Dick. 

Bart settled in Wally’s lap and scrunched his face in confusion. “Why call me Impulse?” he asked, his head cocked to the side. Strange as it was, it was something Wally knew he did himself. From the look on Dick’s face, Dick knew it too.

“You, uh, heard me talking to Dick earlier right?” Bart didn’t say anything for a moment. He was supposed to be asleep, probably didn’t want to get in trouble. “I’m not angry,” he added quickly. “I told Dick that you came to visit me, young me, like I am now. Well, that’s what you called yourself when you first appeared. Impulse. It’s your superhero name.”

Wally didn’t think Bart’s eyes could have gotten any wider, but they somehow managed. Even Dick looked surprised as he sat on the edge of Wally’s bed and watched the conversation unfold. 

“I become a superhero?” he asked in a voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. 

Wally wasn’t sure how much he should tell his cousin. Bart was so young and probably wouldn’t understand everything, but Wally was getting a pretty good idea of how he grew up and knew that if anyone needed hope, no matter how intangible or tentative it might be, it was Bart.

“Yeah,” Wally said, smiling. “And then you become Kid Flash.”

The look Bart gave him reminded Wally of someone getting electrocuted in a cartoon, where their eyes go wide and mouths open in a shocked O. On Bart at least, it was cute. Endearingly so. 

“I become Kid Flash?” Bart asked, his voice hitting decibels Wally wasn’t sure he’d ever heard reached before. “But I thought you were Kid Flash?”

“You do, and I was, but I passed the mantle down to you. Technically, I’m retired though Uncle Barry did ask if I wanted to take over as the Flash for a while after the twins, your dad and aunt, are born. I haven’t given him an answer yet.”

“You were wearing your Kid Flash uniform when we found you. Or what was left of it,” Dick pointed out, but he was smiling and Wally thought he could see a bit of the boy Wally knew still in there.

“Special circumstances,” Wally said with a laugh. “I had to help save the world. I’m pretty sure that’s how I ended up here.”

The look on Dick’s face told Wally that he really wanted to get into it but knew it wasn’t the right time, not with Bart right there and Wally’s head still a bit foggy. He probably wanted Barbara there to hear it too, and maybe the rest of their party when they got back. 

Dick bit back what he really wanted to say, a habit Wally saw him do many times before, and instead said, “We should let you get back to sleep.”

That just made Bart cling on to Wally all the tighter, his arms and legs wrapping around Wally’s middle like a monkey. Like _Gar_. Suddenly, Wally wanted to ask about him, about everyone and what happened to them, but knew he wouldn’t like the answers Dick had for him. 

So instead, Wally pushed down the memory and glanced at the watch still on his wrist. It was nearly seven, a.m. if he wasn’t mistaken, and he no longer felt even remotely tired. He slept the better part of yesterday and knew he wouldn’t fall back asleep if he tried.

“How about you show me around instead?” Wally suggested.

Dick eyed him curiously. “You’ve already seen the Batcave. Unless that changed too.”

“No,” Wally replied quickly, remembering Dick Grayson leading him around by hand when he was only ten and up to Wally’s shoulders, “that still happened.” He smiled, because it was a good memory, seeing the Batcave with his best friend, the boy who’d been the reason Wally did the experiment to become a hero to begin with. 

“Okay, well it has changed a bit I’m sure,” Dick said, relenting, “We’ll take a quick walk around the cave, grab some food, and then you’re going to rest.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Wally began to pull his cousin off of him, but Bart seemed to have other ideas, tightening around Wally’s chest. Wally got a firm hold on his cousin and stood, careful to mind his injured arm. 

He followed Dick out of the small hospital room and into the Batcave proper. 

In a lot of ways, it didn’t look all that different from the last time Wally was in the Batcave, just a lot more lived in. Dick took him around and showed him a quartered off area that was divided into small bedrooms, a fully stocked supply room, a campfire ring where they cooked most of their meals and used as a heat source in the winters. Dick told him they fished from the stream that ran along the caves and that they’d rigged up a hydro generator for some power.

“Mainly, the hydro gen is used to run the heat lamps for our crops eight hours a day,” Dick informed him, leading him deep into the caves where there were, sure enough, rows of corn and wheat, tomatoes and potatoes, and other vegetables. “Food is really hard to come by nowadays, so we have to grow most of our own.” 

Dick led him to the hydro gen next. “The Reach use their own power source and have ways of detecting ours that ran off of electricity. In the beginning, they found a lot of people that way.” Wally didn’t really want to know what the Reach did with the people when they found them. “But the hydro gen is run with all natural energy and is completely undetectable. It doesn’t produce a lot of energy we can convert, but it’s enough to heat the crops with lamps each day with a little left over for emergencies and other uses.”

Wally whistled when he saw it. He set Bart down on his feet and ran his hands over the gen. “This is really awesome,” he said, flashing Dick a smile. “Who came up with this?”

His friend’s eyes got a little dewy then and Wally knew the answer before he even replied. “It was you, Walls,” Dick said softly. He pretended to shrug it off, but Wally could see the pain there. “Well, you and Tim.”

“Tim?” Wally asked excitedly. “Was he one of the people that found me?”

This time, Dick was unable to hide his sorrow and even Bart whimpered and made grabby hands for Wally to pick him back up. “No, Tim wasn’t one of them. I can show him to you if you want though.”

Frowning, Wally could only nod. 

Dick led him back to Wally’s small hospital room, but instead of going inside it, he turned into an identical room right next to Wally’s that he hadn’t noticed before.

Wally saw that some of the cords from the hydro gen ran along the floor and right inside Tim’s room. Following Dick inside, Wally saw it was dimly lit by a flickering lamp. Hospital machinery hummed quietly, and in the middle of the room, a middle-aged Tim slept on, and Wally’s gut filled with apprehension. He was hooked up to a heart rate monitor that filled the room with a steady, beeping pulse, and Wally knew that the equipment for Tim was among the ‘other uses’ the hydro gen was used for.

Dick threw Wally an indecipherable look and stepped closer to his little brother, grabbing his hand. Wally followed, really looking at him. Tim was older, yes, but he was pale, gaunt, sickly. Green around the gills, as Wally’s mother liked to say, which had been hilarious the first time he was around a sick Kaldur, but wasn’t so funny now.

“What happened to him?” Wally asked quietly. 

“He got bit like you did while his team was out digging through buildings for supplies. Not as badly, but bad enough. Luckily they had the antidote and administered it in time, but he fell into a coma. We think Tim had some sort of adverse reaction to the antidote. It wasn’t exactly an allergic reaction, but he’s been this way ever since.”

Wally’s voice was hoarse when he asked, “How long?”

Dick soothed Tim’s hand back down onto the bed and looked at his friend. He looked beaten down, exhausted, and it made Wally hurt and miss home more than he had since arriving in the future. “Just over two years. We’re still trying to find a way to snap him out of it, but it’s been slow going.”

“Especially since I died, huh?” 

Wally knew it was a bit callous even as he said, but it wasn’t any less true. They each had their areas of expertise, but Wally’s had always been science, specifically chemistry. He’d probably been their best shot at coming up with a cure for Tim. But that also meant he’d probably synthesized the antidote that put Tim in a coma.

“Yeah,” Dick said, giving Wally a hard look. “Especially because of that.” He took a step forward, reaching his hand out to Wally before seeming to think better of it. “I know you, Wally. I know what you’re thinking right now, and it isn’t any more your fault now than it was then. No one could have known what would happen. Tim himself didn’t know, so how could you? So please, just don’t blame yourself.”

Wally sighed and looked at Tim again. Yeah, that was easier said than done. 

He followed Dick out of Tim’s room and to the fire pit where Barbara was now awake and making breakfast. Wally took a one of the chairs in front of the fire and gave her a wane smile that she returned. 

Bart remained on his lap, straddling Wally’s legs with his arms wrapped around his neck. Dick set a tea kettle atop the grates and sat down near his friend. Barbara wheeled her chair away in the direction of the supply room. From where he sat, Wally could see the giant penny and the T-Rex and the other odds and ends Bruce and Dick had accumulated during their partnership, things he’d been awe of as a kid and maybe a little jealous because Robin got to keep cool souvenirs and theirs went straight to the Flash Museum. 

“You know, this is where I was heading. Before I passed out yesterday,” Wally said, his voice cutting through the silence. 

“The fire pit?” Dick asked, giving him a wry smile.

“No, the Batcave dumbass,” Wally said, rolling his eyes and laughing.

“Aww!” Bart said, slapping his small hands over Wally’s mouth. “You said a bad word!” Wally began licking Bart’s hand before he had the chance to think better of it. “Ew, Wally! That’s so gross!”

“You shouldn’t cover my mouth up then, Barty-boy.” Bart retracted his hands. Wally made silly faces at his cousin and listened to him giggle for a moment before turning his attention back to Dick. “You always told me I could come to the Batcave if I ever got into trouble.”

A nostalgic look came over Dick. “You remembered,” he said with a laugh.

Wally laughed too. “Well, it wasn’t as long ago for me as it is for you,” he said with a shrug.

“I’m old and senile,” Dick said, laughing. “So sue me.” It was different, but it almost felt like old times, except Dick was old and Wally was in the future holding his eight year old cousin who hadn’t been born yet three days ago when Wally was still in his time.

“Okay, but I’m not too sure where I’m going to cash your check, rich boy.”

“The bank’s still there, Wally, it’s just in about 50,000 different pieces now.”

“Is that all?” Wally asked sarcastically. 

Dick grinned. “I’d forgotten you were this mouthy when you were young.”

Wally could feel the implications and grasped to keep the light air. There was plenty of time for the seriousness of reality later. He shrugged. “You call it be being mouthy, I call it being part of my charm.”

Dick’s smile softened, and it made Wally think of the ones Dick gave him when they were still teenagers, the ones that made Wally’s palms sweat and his heart beat furiously in his chest. “That too.”

A silence lapsed between them until Barbara came back with what looked like a container of oats and several bowls and spoons on her lap. The kettle began to squeal and Dick rose to pull it off the fire. He slipped several small mesh balls full of tea leaves into mugs and filled them with the hot water. Handing off the tea kettle to Barbara, she dumped the oats into a pan and filled it with the water, stirring it until it began to thicken. 

“Sorry we don’t have any sugar or anything,” Dick said when he handed a mug to Wally. 

“When I was twelve, it wouldn’t have surprised me if the Batcave had the ability to grow and process sugar cane. You’re really letting me down here, Rob.”

“Yeah, well you also thought Barry’s jokes were hilarious so I don’t think that means much,” Dick quipped.

“Grandpa Flash?” Bart asked, looking up from his own mug of tea. He wriggled slightly to get a better look at Wally.

“Yep,” Wally said. Leaning close to Bart’s ear, he said in a stage whisper, “Your grandpa’s jokes are hilarious and never let Dick or anyone tell you otherwise.” He saw both Dick and Barbara roll their eyes.

They ate in a comfortable silence, but for when Bart spilled hot tea down Wally’s borrowed t-shirt because he didn’t want to get off his lap. 

“I can’t believe I become _Kid Flash_ ,” Bart said while they finished eating, tightening his grip around Wally into a hug. Wally’s attention went from his bowl of oatmeal to his cousin, taking in the sheer delight on Bart’s face, smile wide and bearing small white teeth.

Dick and Barbara each gave Wally a soft smile, knowing how much it meant to Bart to hear something like that.  
“Do I look good in it? The uniform, I mean,” Bart asked, suddenly shier than Wally’d ever known him to be.

In truth, Wally hadn’t the chance to see Bart all decked out before he wound up in the future, but look on Bart’s face was so hopeful that Wally couldn’t tell him that, but he couldn’t lie to him either. Instead, he replied, “You’re an Allen. It’s in your _blood_.”

Which was completely true. From what Wally understood talking to Uncle Barry and Jay, Bart inherited the speedster legacy more than any of them.

Wally’s answer appeased him, and Bart smiled as only a child could. “I can’t wait, Wally. I can’t wait to be Kid Flash.”

\--

_Palo Alto  
March 22, 2016_

When Bart got into the time machine to come to the future, he had a mission, a plan. Stop Neutron and save Grandpa Barry, stop Blue Beetle from going on mode, and do everything he could to prevent the Reach apocalypse. Over and over they drilled it into his head, Wally and Dick and Barbara and the rest of them. 

In the abstract, when he was still in the future, it seemed so doable. Like it was inevitable. But the past was completely different than he’d expected. He thought that it would be all laughing and fun missions and saving lives. Instead, it was serious, life or death, and in some ways so much more dangerous because Bart knew what would happen to the world if he made a wrong move.

And if Bart somehow managed to accomplish everything he was supposed to, he knew that he still had to say goodbye to the person he was closest to in the entire world. Wally, this past Wally, didn’t know it yet which made talking to him weird at times, but it was still Wally, the man who raised him as his own, risked everything for him, and died for them all. 

Bart didn’t want to let Wally go, but he knew that if he didn’t, then something bad might happen, that Wally might never go to the future to build the time machine for Bart to set things right. The timeline would change and the world might still fall. 

Worst of all, Bart had to leave him there, Wally’d made him promise, and Bart didn’t know if things would miraculously change if they managed to save the world or if his cousin would be trapped in an apocalyptic future as a young man while Bart would be, more or less, living Wally’s life for him. On Wally’s team in Wally’s uniform in Wally’s time. 

He tried his best to keep it together, to not let anyone know about the plan, but sometimes it got to be too much for him. Usually, he was able to cry quietly in the shower or in his room at the Garrick’s house when he got overwhelmed. Tonight it wasn’t enough. 

He yearned for his old life in a way that almost felt ridiculous considering how bad the world had been. Or Bart, at least, missed the people in it. They were all here in some capacity or another, but it wasn’t the same. Even Wally didn’t really know him yet. All the same, he showed up at Wally’s apartment at nearly three in the morning, knocking at his door frantically with his entire body trembling. 

Wally was too slow in opening the door, so Bart phased through it, watching as a sleepy shirtless Wally ambled towards him. “I thought you might be Dick,” he said, rubbing his eyes, though he didn’t look particularly angry like Bart thought he might be.  
“Nope, just me!” Bart said, with a hollow laugh. That got Wally’s attention.

“Hey,” he said, stepping closer to Bart, “what’s going on?”

“Ican’ttellyou,” Bart said quickly, before adding, “Futurebusiness. I’mjustnotfeeling verycrashrightnow.”

Wally watched as Bart’s body began to violently tremble and briefly, he worried his cousin might vibrate right through the floor and surprise the downstairs neighbors.

“Bart,” he said quietly, laying a hand on his cousin’s shoulder, stilling him. Bart looked up at Wally in surprise and let out a breath that made his entire body shudder.

“Can you just…can you just hug me for a moment?” Bart asked. He looked so close to crying that it broke Wally’s heart.

“Of course Bart. Are you sure you don’t want me to get Aunt Iris or Uncle Barry instead though?” Wally asked as Bart flung himself into Wally’s arms.

It was muffled, but Wally was pretty sure that Bart said, “It has to be you, Wally. You always know how to make it better.”

It startled Wally how sad his cousin was and he wondered again how bad it’d been where Bart came from. “You and me, we were pretty close in the future, yeah?”

Wally felt Bart nod into his chest. “The closest,” he mumbled and hugged him tighter.

“Okay,” Wally replied, drawing his younger cousin to him a little tighter too. “Maybe we should be now too.” 

And Wally knew he could do that. For family, for a little boy from the future who had already seen too much, he could do that.

\--

_Batcave  
June 22, 2051_

After breakfast, Wally accompanied Dick back to the crops to water them. It was a two person job Dick told him with one person walking the hose up and down the rows and the other turning a wheel that drew the water up from the stream. 

Wally had to consciously keep the wheel turning at an even pace and not at superspeed like he was accustomed to. He didn’t really want to think about what Dick and Barbara would say if he broke their hydro gen. 

A little ways off, Wally saw Bart kneeling in the dirt and playing with a rusty toy dump truck and an old Flash action figure that Wally was pretty sure he’d jokingly given Dick when he was thirteen. 

In total, it took nearly an hour for Dick to walk up and down the rows to water everything, and by the time he came and sat down next to Wally, Wally felt his good arm burning from exertion while the injured one remained stationary in his lap.

“Now would be a good time to talk,” Dick said, grunting a little as he sat down and chugging a mug full of water.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to talk to everyone all at once?” Wally asked, looking up from the wheel and sitting down next to his friend.

“Tell me first,” he insisted, and Wally got the feeling that Dick was perhaps the group’s unofficial leader. 

Wally frowned but nodded. He went into detail about the mission, about Bart coming back and how Jaime got moded before they managed to get him back, infiltrating the Light summit and about the Reach’s twenty insurance policies. 

“Only it turned out there was a twenty-first magnetic field disrupter up in the Arctic that we didn’t detect at first because it was hidden by the magnetic North pole. Flash and Impulse took off for it since there aren’t any zeta tubes nearby, but it had already reached the chrysalis state by the time they made it.” 

“Lex Luthor told them to run in the opposite direction of the vortex the chrysalis made to try and siphon off the kinetic energy. I could tell that it wasn’t enough, so I left the Watchtower and zetaed as close as I could to the Arctic and ran the rest of the way. With me running too, we able to generate enough kinetic energy, but the energy from the vortex started to siphon off into me as an outlet because I’m a lot slower than Uncle Barry or Bart. 

“It felt like I was being struck by lightning through every cell in my body, even worse than the experiment that made me Kid Flash to begin with. I realized I was literally starting to disappear so I said good-bye to Uncle Barry because I was positive I was dying, and I was okay with that. I accepted it.

“Except I didn’t, and woke up in downtown Gotham thirty-five years later,” Wally finished, shrugging, because it was probably even weirder for him than everyone else.

“The Flash died and we never got Jaime back. So that’s what changed,” Dick murmured, more to himself than anything. “The Reach never needed to use their back-up plan because we’d basically already lost at that point with Blue Beetle on their side. But even if they did, you never would have been able to destabilize a vortex by yourself. Not even with Jay Garrick and Max Mercury there with you. It wouldn’t have been enough.”

“What happened?” Wally asked. He’d been dreading the question, but he needed to know. Something was starting to feel tangible, possibility in the air, and he needed to know, to confirm it.

“The Justice League fell first, or most of them at least. You’d just been initiated as the Flash at that point and remained at the Watchtower to help Batman coordinate the League. The Team was asked to remain in Bludhaven as back-up, though some didn’t listen, Cassie and Arsenal. We never saw them again. Black Beetle attacked Washington; the Pentagon, the White House, the Hall of Justice. He took out a lot of the League, while a lot of them were probably captured, but we were never sure. We don’t know what happened to them. 

“Blue Beetle attacked the Watchtower during the attack on Washington. Batman shoved you into the zeta tube just before it was blown from the sky, and that knocked out all zeta transport and communications. Green Beetle started dropping bombs around the countries, all the major cities, or so we heard. 

“You came out of the zeta tube in Keystone and,” Dick paused, and Wally gulped. He knew, fuck he knew, but it was still going to hurt to hear Dick say it. “Your parents were…gone, so you ran to Central and grabbed your aunt and ran her all the way to the Batcave because it was deep underground. Then you took off for Washington. The team had just arrived in Washington too, right before the zeta tubes cut out. Mal had been only halfway through it.”

Wally felt tears slide down his face. Bart made his way over and crawled back into his lap, cradling Wally’s cheeks with his small hands and wiping his tears away. 

“You found a little girl there, Milagro, and gave her to Gar to look after. I ordered Gar and Tim to hide and not come out until it was safe because they were just so young. We fought, but we were just overwhelmed and had to retreat. Under nightfall, you ran us one by one back to the Batcave. It took you a few days to get us all here. We paused to catch our breath, to regroup, so we could come back out to fight, but it was too late. The Reach had already began rounding people up into work camps and into facilities to experiment on them. They leveled everything. When we went out into Gotham, we couldn’t even find anyone. We had no numbers and were barely surviving. 

“A few people showed up to the Cave, people that knew about it. Stephanie managed to make it here somehow, and Cheshire showed up nearly three months later. I guess Roy had told her about it, but he got captured while looking for food. The Cave was well stocked and kept us reasonably okay for a while because Bruce was always paranoid. Months passed and we knew we needed to make a real effort. You and Tim devised a lot of the stuff you see around here, but we still had to go out scavenging sometimes and that’s when we first encountered the Watchers. Jade got bit and died quickly. Kaldur, he was next. You took the poison in their blood and synthesized an antidote. Even if Tim had a strange reaction to it, your antidote saved a lot of people.

“After,” Dick said, gulping painfully and clutching his chest, “after Artemis died saving Lian when she got out of the cave one day, M’gann and Gar left, and Conner not long after. Alfred passed away and Iris, she got cancer and there was nothing we could do. We tried to save her, but we just didn’t have the equipment. So you raised your cousins, Donald and Dawn. When Don was about twenty, he returned from a scavenging trip with a girl a few years older than him. Her name was Meloni.”

“Mommy and Daddy,” Bart whispered. Wally looked at his devastated face and clutched the boy tightly. 

Dick drew in a deep breath and continued. “Meloni died giving birth to Bart. Nearly three years later, Don got captured and Dawn went after him. You tried to talk her out of it, but she didn’t listen and took off without a plan. We tried going after them but we just didn’t have the numbers. It nearly killed you to lose them. They were like ou – I mean _your_ children. You raised them. But you were amazing Wally. You put all your grief into raising Bart, and look at what a wonderful little boy he is,” Dick said. He, too, had tears streaming from his eyes, his voice bordering on hysterical.   
Wally knew it’d been bad, but god, hearing it all confirmed was devastating. He couldn’t imagine having lived it. He couldn’t imagine his parents and Artemis, Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris, Roy, Kaldur, and the rest of their friends all dead. 

He choked back a sob, catching a drip running from his nose, and said, “Bart’s the best little boy I know.”

The three of them cried wordlessly for a few minutes, Wally wrapping a tentative arm around Dick’s shoulders. Eventually, they calmed down and Dick shrugged out of the embrace, shifting into Batmode as Wally’d always put it when they were kids. 

“So,” Dick said, “how do you think you ended up here?” There it was, his mission voice. Aged and thick with sorrow, but there. 

Wally thought about it for a moment. In his time, time travel was all theoretical, or had been until his cousin came barreling back into the past. “Honestly,” Wally began, “I think that all that kinetic energy created some kind of time slip. I was the valve because I was the slowest, the only one slow enough to get caught in it.”

“Mm,” Dick murmured, but said nothing else for a long time. 

“There’s something I want to show you. We-” he began, but was cut off by the sound of running footsteps echoing off through the cave.

Dick stood immediately, running back to the main floor of the Cave. Bart still in his arms, Wally followed him. Barbara was there, watching as two women and a man neared.

“Did you find her?” Barbara asked, her face ashen with worry.

“No, but we know where she is,” the man said and Wally was suddenly overwhelmed because _Bruce_. Only, Dick had said Batman died in the Watchtower after shoving future Wally through the zeta tube. Wally looked closer and saw that while the man definitely resembled Bruce, he was much younger than the age Bruce would be thirty-five years in the future. His features were sharper and his skin was darker, and that’s when it clicked. Damian.

“You don’t know that for sure,” one of the women said. She was pretty, Latina, in her early- to mid- forties. Wally was sure he’d never seen before, but there was something awfully familiar about the shape of her dark brown eyes, her high brow, and her tightly pressed lips.

“C’mon Mi, we both know Damian’s right,” the third woman said. And she could only be Lian Nguyen-Harper. She had Roy’s fine red hair and Jade’s piercing dark eyes. Her skin was maybe a shade or two lighter than her mother’s, closer to Artemis’. But for her hair color, she looked so much like her aunt, her aunt who’d been dead for years in this time, dead like most everyone Wally knew, that Wally lightly gasped.

“Okay, what _happened_?” Barbara said impatiently, interrupting Damian.

He started to speak again, but the first woman, the one Wally didn’t know, interrupted him. “After we dropped off, uh, _Wally_ , we went back to the Wayne Tech building and found a trail. Nice Watcher kill, by the way,” she said, looking at Wally with a small smile before back at Dick and Barbara. 

“It went for nearly a mile from the safe house, nowhere near any of the others either. Don’t have a clue why she was that far out, but there were signs of a struggle. Watcher prints and her canteen on the ground, but no body. Not even a trail like she dragged herself somewhere after getting bit. Just gone.”

“I think they took her,” Damian insisted. It was eerie seeing him all grown up, maybe even more so than seeing Dick and Babs and Tim that way. Damian had been so petulant and irritable at ten years old, and now he was an adult, not just in looks but maturity. And okay, maybe seeing Lian an infant one day and a thirty-five year old woman the next was a little weird too.

“They haven’t done the experiments in years,” Barbara said. She didn’t look like she liked his answer, but what was the alternative?

“That we know of,” Dick said, looking hard at Damian. They seemed to share some wordless communication and Damian nodded. “Who knows what they’re up to now that nearly all of humanity is enslaved. Maybe they’re beginning to run out of test subjects.”

Barbara sighed, running her hands over her face. “I really don’t like the sound of that.” She, too, stared at Damian before finally asking, “Which direction did the Watcher’s trail lead?”

“West,” Damian said, a hint of that old arrogance in his voice.

“The New York camps,” Dick said, and Damian nodded.

According to Dick, the state of New York now boasted one of the biggest Reach camps and facilities in the country last they knew of. It was one of the first to go up after the invasion and was still a stronghold of theirs. It wasn’t common for the Watchers to snatch people for the camps anymore, and the fact that Stephanie was taken was worrying to them all.

Damian insisted that they had to go after her. Wally knew that Damian cared little for Steph back when they were kids, but he had the strong suspicion that they were a couple now. While Milagro, the woman Wally wasn’t familiar with, didn’t at first think Stephanie had been taken by the Watchers, she was adamant that they had to get her back. Lian agreed, lacing her hand through the older woman’s. 

The three of them were going whether Dick and Barbara agreed to it or not. Babs sighed in frustration because there was little she could do one way or the other. Wally could plainly see that it killed her to know that. But Dick agreed that they had to get Steph back, maybe try to liberate the work camp while they were at it.

Barbara had frowned at him. “After that, after everyone’s free, where would they go? They couldn’t all follow you back to the Batcave. The Reach would scoop them back up faster than you can say apocalypse.”

“If there are people in the camps, we can’t just leave them,” Dick insisted. 

Wally was torn. He could see both sides to it, but he still wasn’t sure how this world worked just yet. Instead, he said, “If you’re going to get Stephanie back, I want to go with you.”

Immediately, Bart began crying and he buried his face in Wally’s borrowed shirt, asking him not to go. Damian gave him a narrow look and Dick gripped his good arm tightly, to which Wally responded, “I’m younger and _far_ faster than any of you. I’d be an asset.”

“You’re still recovering from being attacked, West,” Damian said.

Dick’s grip on his arm tightened. “And you had a flare-up just this morning because the poison wasn’t entirely out of your system.”

Wally shrugged. “If there’s some of the antidote to spare, then bring it. We might need it anyway if someone gets bit. And also,” Wally said, unwinding the bandage from his arm and exposing his wounds, “I’m nearly healed.” He was right. The cuts were all closed. Some of them were still angry, swollen, and red, but some were well on their way to becoming mere scar tissue. He rotated his arm around for everyone to see, and Dick’s eyes narrowed. 

“We need to talk for a few minutes, Wally,” Barbara said. “In private.” 

Wally nodded and walked off back to his hospital room with Bart in tow. Just before he stepped inside, he veered course and slipped into Tim’s room instead, taking a seat in a chair by the bed. 

He stared at the comatose man for nearly ten minutes before leaning forward and gently brushing his fingers over the back of Tim’s hand. Bart squirmed in his lap, but didn’t let go.

“God Timmy,” he said, calling him the endearment he often heard Dick use, “I saw you just a few days ago and you were fourteen and Robin. It’s crazy the way the world works, huh?”

Wally heard someone sigh in the doorway, and turned to see Dick standing there. “I told them all the shortened version of what you told me earlier and last night.”

“They believe you?” Wally asked, drawing his hand back and burying instead in Bart’s auburn hair.

Dick shrugged. “What else could be the truth?”

Wally didn’t want to, but he laughed, the awkward noise bubbling up from his chest, because it was absolutely true. This was his life now, and what could possibly be true other than time travel. “Yeah, I suppose,” he said finally.

“Personally,” Dick said, stepping closer and stopping at the foot of Tim’s bed, “I don’t think you should go, but I know I can’t really stop you either. You’ve always been stubborn like that.”

“The stubbornest,” Wally conceded. 

“It’s mid-afternoon now, so we’re all going to get some sleep and be ready to go at dark. The Watchers mostly come out at night, but we can’t really risk being seen by Reach ships flying overhead either.” And, in Spanish, a language they both understood but Bart didn’t, Dick added, “This is probably a suicide mission.”

“Yeah, I know,” Wally replied in English, “but we’re heroes. It’s what we do.”

\--

_Batcave  
June 22, 2051_

Glancing at his watch, Wally saw that it was just after seven when Dick woke him. Bart remained motionless, clinging hard to Wally’s arm in his sleep. As gently as he could, Wally pried his cousin from off and followed Dick out. Wally would let him sleep while he got ready and then wake him to say good-bye. It would easier on him, or so he hoped.

Since it was July, it wouldn’t be dark for a while yet, but it would be better to change and get ready beforehand so they’d have as much time on the road as possible. Bart crept from the room he’d shared with Wally just as their dinner of fish and veggies was about done. He wordlessly took a seat next to Wally, lacing his hand through Wally’s. Wally wrapped his arm around Bart’s small body and drew him closer. It seemed to content him somewhat, though Wally could still feel him tremble slightly. 

But for a few soft murmurs from Barbara, the group was silent through dinner. Apprehension hung thickly in the air. Damian stared off, no doubt worrying about Stephanie, while Lian and Milagro sat closely together, pressed hip to shoulder. Dick seemed to pick at his food until he caught Wally looking at him pointedly and dug in. 

Wally didn’t know what it could be like for them, what they were feeling, though he was sure he’d soon find out. He hadn’t lived in a world where the only thing you had left were the people around you and the urge to survive. 

He’d seen Damian snip at Lian and Milagro, but at the same time, he knew they’d do anything for each other, which he could understand. Though he barely knew Stephanie when she was fifteen or so, Wally too was heading out with them when they had smaller than a shot in hell, but innately knew they had to try.

Barbara gave each of them a hug and tried to make it look like she wasn’t crying by rubbing her eyes whenever someone looked away. Bart hugged and kissed everyone on the cheek, saving Wally for last, who he barreled into, burying his head in Wally’s stomach and sobbing. “I don’t want you to go, Wally. What if you don’t come back like last time?”

Wally knelt down so they were at eye level. He didn’t want to promise his cousin something he couldn’t guarantee he could keep, but he had to say something. Gently putting his hands on Bart’s shoulders so they could look at each other, Wally said, “Stephanie needs us to help her right now. You know she’d help any of us too, right?” Bart nodded, tears dripping from where they pooled under his chin before sliding to the floor. “Bart, I will try to do everything I can to get back here to you. We’re family, and I love you. You mean so much to me.”

Bart’s eyes, if possible, got glassier with tears. He looked on the verge of sobbing again, and it tore at Wally’s gut. Wally drew Bart into another hug and after a moment, Bart said, “I know, Wally. You’re brave and a hero and the Flash. And someday, I’m going to be your Kid Flash, so I have to learn how to be brave too. Even if I’m sad and scared.”

Pulling back, Wally smiled at him, not wanting to contradict him and tell him that he’d never been the Flash and that, officially at least, Wally had quit heroing. “See, you already know what takes a lot of people years to learn. Because you’re a Flash, and we’re unstoppable, yeah?”

Bart eyed him critically before breaking out into a small smile. “Yeah,” he said with a small nod.

\--

_Gotham City  
June 23, 2051_

“That was really cool of you back there,” Milagro said, falling into step next to Wally. They’d been walking for a few hours and were finally nearing the edge of Gotham. They had to travel in the dark without flashlights if they could help it because the light drew the Watchers, which Wally thought was a little ironic since he beat one to death with a flashlight. Thankfully, things had been pretty quiet so far.

Wally cocked an eyebrow and looked at her, even though she probably couldn’t see him very well. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Before we left, how you were with Bart. What you said to him and stuff,” she said. Milagro sounded as if she was going for nonchalance or something akin to it, but wasn’t quite there. Then again, she could have only been a child when the Reach took over, making nonchalance something she was unaccustomed to feeling.

“Yeah, I know he will anyway, but I didn’t want him to worry too much,” Wally said quietly. “But I meant what I said to him. I haven’t known Bart that long, but he became important to me very quickly.”

“In the past,” she said, and Wally could feel her dark eyes studying him, “where you’re from.”

“Yeah,” he said again, “in the past. Though Bart was older then. Thirteen.” 

They fell into a silence before Milagro said, “You saved my life, you know.”

“What?” Wally asked. Surely he would have remembered that, especially since he’d just met her earlier that same day. Unless…

“Well,” Milagro amended, “future you. The Wally that I knew.”

“Ah,” Wally said, because he honestly didn’t know how to reply to that.

Continuing on, she said, “My parents and I had gone to Washington to talk to the Justice League. It was right after my brother was…turned.” Wally could hear the thick emotion there in her voice, the long-lingering pain.

Suddenly, it clicked. “Your Jaime’s little sister. Bart mentioned you once or twice. In my time, I mean.” 

“You knew my brother back before this whole mess, saw him recently before you ended up here,” Milagro prompted.

“Yeah, we just got him back and he helped us save the world. We wouldn’t have been able to if it wasn’t for Jaime,” Wally began, imagining the tall, gangly shy kid Bart was always talking about. As an afterthought, he added, “He’s a good kid. I like Jaime a lot.” 

Wally saw Lian turn around about fifteen paces or so in front of them, shooting Milagro a lingering look. Damian and Dick walked a little way ahead of her yet, conversing quietly.

“I wonder why things didn’t right themselves here then. If you guys saved the world, I mean.”

Wally thought about it for a moment. “There are a few possibilities.”

“Oh yeah?” she said, letting out a light laugh. “Enlighten me, oh wise Mr. Scientist.”

He grinned at her and laughed back. “Well, there’s the Many-Worlds theory that’s a possibility.”

“Many-Worlds? What’s that?”

“Hm, how should I explain this?” Wally thought for a moment. “Okay, say I’m doing a magic trick and ask you to pick a card. It’s a full deck with 52 different potential cards for you to draw. Say you draw the Queen of Spades, okay?”

“Okay,” Milagro replied, looking thoughtful as she readjusted her backpack. “Now what?”

“Well, in the Many-Worlds interpretation of the Multiverse Theory, which is all about parallel universes, there is a world out there for each card you could have drawn, each possibility, and in that world you drew that corresponding card. You follow?”

“52 worlds where I made 52 different choices, a different choice and outcome in each world,” she said, looking over at him. By this time, Wally noticed that not only Lian, but also Dick and Damian had slowed some to listen to their conversation.

“Exactly! And that’s only for something silly like a magic trick. The theory states that there’s potentially a different universe for each time a decision diverges. It’s theoretically possible that I come from a very similar world, but the events diverged when Bart came back in a time machine and saved my Uncle Barry. Bart’s presence also helped Blue Beetle crash the mode, as Bart would say.” 

Considering it was her brother, Wally only hoped bringing Blue Beetle up wouldn’t offend Milagro. She seemed like a really smart, cool, and caring woman, and it also meant something to Wally that she was with Roy’s daughter. 

“So you think you’re from a parallel universe then?” Milagro asked. “One where the Reach didn’t succeed in taking over?”  
“It’s entirely possible,” Wally admitted, “but that isn’t my best guess, just a good one.”

“What’s your best guess then, Wally?”

“I think the world, present for you, future for me, hasn’t changed yet because at this point, Bart hasn’t gone back in the time machine yet.”

“Technically, he has,” Milagro said.

“Techncally,” Wally conceded, “but time travel is a fickle thing. A lot of scientists a lot smarter than I am theorize that time is nonlinear, that each possible moment is taking place at the same time. But still, Bart’s thirteen when he arrives in the year 2016. Right now, he’s only eight. We still have nearly five years.”

“So what are we going to do then?”

“Hm,” Wally said, staring up at the sky. He’d never seen the stars in Gotham at night before and, despite everything that had to transpire for Wally to be able gaze heavenward, it was still a breathtaking sight. “Looks like we have five years to figure out how to build a time machine. If I’m right, things will change once Bart goes back. If that’s what happens, I can’t say whether or not we’ll remember any of it though.”

“We?” she asked. “You’re staying?”

“Well, Bart’s the only one that stepped out of the time machine. It’s probably going to be difficult enough sending one person back.”

In the limited light, Wally saw Milagro’s face blanch. “But what about your life, Wally? Your future? You’ll be…displaced.”

Wally sighed, looking back up. It was possible that somewhere up there was where he really belonged, his own universe, but really, he didn’t think so. While he was a man of science and didn’t believe in something as intangible as fate, something told him that he was meant to be here, meant to help send Bart back so they could set things right. 

“If that’s the cost I have to pay to help save the world, then I’ll gladly pay it,” he murmured. When his eyes traveled back down to earth, Wally saw that Dick had stopped and was looking at him intently. 

He had an unreadable look on his face. He cleared his throat. “Even after all these years, Wally, you still continue to surprise me,” Dick said quietly before turning back to catch up with Damian. Wally saw Damian whisper something to his brother, something Wally couldn’t hear, and Dick nodded.

After a few minutes, Milagro turned back to Wally and asked, “Can you tell me about him? Jaime. Everything you know.”

Glancing over at her, Wally said, “Truthfully, I don’t know him too well. I was in retirement when he joined the team.” He looked away.

“But you still know something, something you’re holding back,” she prompted. Lian fell into step on the other side of Milagro, taking her girlfriend’s hand and giving it a squeeze.

“A little bit,” Wally said, smiling to himself and looking back up. A shooting star darted across the sky and he made a wish. “Most of what I know about him is what Bart’s told me. They became fast friends after they met. At first I think it was because Bart was trying to keep Jaime from, ah, getting moded, but that changed once they got to know each other. I mean, Bart still wanted to prevent the Reach from using him, but he…well, I think there’s something there. Between them. Something maybe a bit more than just friendship.”

“Really?” Lian asked, giving Milagro a goofy smile. “Jaime and little Bart.”

Wally laughed. “Nothing’s happened yet. At least before I ended up here, nothing that Bart’s told me at least. But I’ve seen how they look at each other. It’s very sweet.”

A soft smile formed over Milagro’s lips. “You always speak in the present tense, like all this hasn’t happened already.” 

“For me, it’s all still happening,” Wally said. 

“Good,” she said, nodding. “I like knowing that somewhere out there, Jaime is still young, happy, and in love. That he hasn’t been betrayed by his own body. That’s all I want.” 

\--

_Bludhaven  
August 3, 2016_

After Wally’s funeral, it felt like Dick Grayson had dropped off the face of the earth. 

He stopped returning calls and texts and emails, complete radio silence. Towards everyone it seemed, because Artemis had checked. Babs had told her that every time she swung down to his Bludhaven apartment, he didn’t answer the door. The one time she disabled the security and went inside, the only thing she found were dirty clothes and discarded food containers. 

“So he’s definitely been there,” she said. “Some of them weren’t even that old. But there were so many of them, more than Dick could reasonably eat by himself. It was almost like-“ Babs hesitated, trying to choose her words carefully. Artemis saw her hesitation, and nodded for her to go on. “It was almost like Wally’d been there with him given how many there were.” 

Though she knew her friend didn’t mean to, Artemis felt the familiar sensation of having the wind knocked out of her. Aside from Dick merely cutting himself off from the world, something was wrong.

Barbara went on to say that not even Batman was sure what Dick was up to these days. He even got a bit gruff and told her that Dick was mourning in his own way and time, and to leave it at that. He’d come out from his seclusion when he was ready. 

“Personally, I don’t think Bruce knows what to do either,” Barbara admitted. “He probably hasn’t seen Dick this shaken up since his parents died.”

Obviously, Artemis was having a hard time with it too. After all, her boyfriend had quite literally disappeared off the face of the earth after they’d finally been reunited less than a day. Granted, leading up to her undercover mission, she and Wally had been fighting a lot, ridiculously at each other’s throats in a way they’d never been before, but that didn’t make her love him less.

She knew he didn’t want to return to the life, at least not at the time, but every fiber of her being desired it, craved it the way addicts can only crave. She was an adrenaline junkie and you couldn’t find a fix in the pages of a psychology textbook the way you could out on a mission. In some ways, she wanted back in the business more than she wanted to be with Wally and that made her feel so guilty now that he was gone. Because she loved him, more than she’d ever loved anyone, and it felt like she’d had to sacrifice him to get what she wanted. Which was absurd because that wasn’t how things worked. 

They both wanted such different things that sometimes while she was undercover, she contemplated what would happen once the mission was over. Would she simply be content going back to Palo Alto with her cozy little life with a caring boyfriend and a dog, graduation looming in the near future? Yes, she told herself. Yes, it was enough, yes, it was what she wanted. But it sounded so hollow even in her thoughts. 

Being undercover with Kaldur had been terrifying and exciting and everything about the life she’d missed during her retirement. It was living on the very edge and she hated to admit it, but she absolutely loved it. There were some nights she almost hoped that the mission wouldn’t end, that she’d still be needed.

That, too, made her feel guilty. Nearly everyone she loved thought she was dead, her peaceful little life with Wally was a lie, and nothing she did could stem off the guilt that gnawed her when she was left alone with only her thoughts.

There was absolutely nothing about Wally’s death that made her happy, but she couldn’t deny that her new freedom was exhilarating. She rejoined the team and threw herself into her missions to drown the nagging emptiness she felt.

Kaldur had been a great friend to talk to when she really needed someone. He was the only person that really understood what they’d gone through together, but even still, it killed her that Dick, one of her oldest and best friends, Wally’s best friend, had shut himself off to her completely. 

It wasn’t that she didn’t think he’d be affected by Wally’s death, and it wasn’t that she was naïve to the feelings Dick had been harboring for Wally since they were teenagers. It was that she thought that they could maybe mourn together over their shared loss. Maybe she’d been with Wally when he died, but she knew that didn’t make what Dick felt for him any less real, and in some ways, she envied the relationship between Dick and Wally. She wasn’t a jealous person by nature, but she knew they’d been best friends since they were kids, _years_ before she’d even met them. Wally went to Dick with problems he didn’t think Artemis would understand and he confided things in the younger man. While she shared a lot with Wally, so much, it was something that she never had with him, and now she never would. That was one of the things she really mourned, all the what-ifs, all the possibility that had been there. 

Which was probably why she ended up at Dick’s apartment after he spent weeks dodging her calls. She just wanted something that reminded her of Wally that would put her mind at ease. Wally would have wanted her to make sure that Dick was okay, Dick who had already lost so much and always put everyone else before himself.

She probably spent nearly ten minutes standing outside the door, unable to bring herself to knock. Artemis wasn’t even sure if Dick wanted to talk to her, to see her. Maybe he was angry, hated her because she’d had Wally and now Dick never would. If the roles had been reversed, Artemis wasn’t above admitting that a small part of her may have resented Dick. But Dick wasn’t her and he’d always been a great friend to her no matter the circumstances. She had to repay the favor.

Her knuckles were finally nearing the door when she felt a rush of wind brush past her body. For one crazed moment, all she could think was that it was Wally back, Wally coming to tell her that he wasn’t really dead. 

Taking a gasping breath, Artemis turned to her right and found Bart standing there, staring up at her with big round eyes. He looked nervous. To see her standing there? Artemis wasn’t sure.

“Uh,” he said before his mouth clamped shut again.

“Hi Bart,” she said, forcing herself to smile at him. It hurt seeing him because there was just so much about him that was reminded her of Wally. During missions, she could ignore it, and was able to immerse herself entirely in the mission mindset. Seeing him standing before her at Dick’s front door, his eyes round as the Oreos he and Wally used to sit around eating during their movie nights, it was much more difficult. 

“H-hey Artemis! Y-youheretoseeDick?” He spoke it all in less than a heartbeat. He was nervous, nervous that she’d seen him at Dick’s front door, but she didn’t know why.

“Why else would I be here?” she asked, laughing a little. It sounded fake to her ears, and she hoped he wouldn’t notice.

“That’sverygoodpoint!” he said. His body was visibly vibrating, pulsing, and he refused to meet her eyes. “Iwasinthe neighborhoodsoIthought I’dpayDickavisit.”

She was about to respond when the door wrenched open. “Bart, what are you doi-“ Dick said, his eyes landing on Artemis. “Oh, hey Arty.” She watched him pale and swallow nervously. Dick could go undercover, could spin a thousand different webs of dissent, but he was shit at lying to the people he cared about.

Something was definitely going on, and Artemis needed to know what it was.

Instead of jumping down his throat like she wanted, she smiled. “Hey Dick. I just, I haven’t seen you since the funeral and I wanted to know how you’ve been doing. You haven’t returned any of my calls.”

“Oh,” he said, and his face darkened into maroon flush, “I’ve been using a new number. I must not have sent it to you. Sorry about that.”

She widened her smile. “It’s okay. Hey, why don’t the three of us go grab some food and catch up?”

They both looked like they wanted to say no, it was far too obvious on their faces, but they were unable to come up with their excuses fast enough, and they ended up in a small diner across the street from Dick’s building.

Artemis purposefully made them both sit across from her in the booth so she could study their faces. Whatever it was going on, it wasn’t something obvious. For a wild moment, Artemis thought that maybe they were seeing each other, but that thought was so ridiculous that she pushed it from her mind. There wasn’t anything about their body language that hinted at that, and besides, Bart was roughly six years younger.

No, it was something else, something more. And it was something big.

“Have you given any thought to returning to the team?” she asked, idly swirling her straw around in her glass of Pepsi. They’d already finished eating, even Bart who’d only picked at his food, without any indication of what they were hiding. 

Her question startled Dick. “Actually,” he said after a long moment, “I’ve been thinking of finally going to school. It’s been more than a year since I graduated. I think it might be time.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” she said, and she meant it. Dick was easily one of the smartest people she knew, but something about his words didn’t ring true to her. “What are you thinking about studying?”

“Something to do with technology I think. Maybe some sort of engineering?”

She smirked. “That’d definitely be right up your alley. What about you, Bart?” she asked, eyes swiveling to the younger boy. “Any plans for the future?”

Bart’s eyes widened at her words, disturbed by them. Artemis heard a small scuffle from under the table almost like Dick kicked him in the shin and saw Bart wince before composing himself. “Well, I’m only in middle school,” he said, “so I’ve got some time to decide.”

“I wasn’t talking about college,” she said with a laugh. “More like, is there anyone special in your life right now. We haven’t really talked lately.” Artemis’ voice softened. “Not since before the funeral.”

“Yeah,” Bart said, but a bright flush blossomed across his face. “Yeah, there sort of is someone.”

Dick looked over at him in surprise. It was clear that the two had been spending a lot of time together since the funeral. They hadn’t been exactly strangers before it, but they hadn’t known each other as friends much either. But something about their mannerisms now, the way they interacted, it indicated they did spend a lot of time together for some reason or another. 

“Really?” Artemis asked, and she was smiling again. 

For the first time, she saw Dick’s tense body relax, and it was like she was breathing again after holding her breath so long. She saw some of the familiar easiness settle into his body as he shoulder bumped Bart and asked, “Is it someone on the team?”

Somehow Bart’s color deepened and his mouth fell open, vehemently shaking his head.

“Is it Jaime?” Dick asked, and he laughed. It was light and soft, but it was a laugh. Bart nodded his head. “Jaime’s a good kid,” Dick said, nodding. “I like him a lot.”

“Are you going to ask him out?” Artemis asked.

Bart said. “He’slikethreeyearsolder thanmeandhe’sreallysmart andawesome. ButIdon’twant totalkaboutit rightnow.”

“It might work out,” Dick insisted, but he was looking at Artemis. “You never know.”

Artemis missed the intended double meaning there, but she was determined to find out what it was.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know a whole lot about walkie-talkies and their ranges, but the ones in this story were invented by Batman, so just go with it. Also, the Reach apocalypse in my story probably diverges from cannon, among other things. :)


End file.
